This is one of those articles where I remind the reader that we here at ART are only headhunters who know executive search recruitment very well, but only executive search recruitment, and that in no way are we qualified to replace your Human Resources or Legal departments.

Do I now have to say that this article is "for entertainment purposes only - do your own research?" OK, let's do that.

In the United States, unfortunately, many huge, middle and small U.S. firms have developed a bad habit of hiring full-time, 100% dedicated employees as legal subcontractors. Yes, I know that there are many exceptions, but I’m not referring to entrepreneurial people with multiple clients who like running their own consulting business.

This habit is helped by the fact that in most U.S. states it is perfectly legal for an individual to register as a business and to simply invoice the client (employer). Normal factors of employment, like the accounting for income, payment of taxes and social security, and making allotments for pensions, health benefits, etc., are in this model the sole concern of the subcontractor (employee), not the client (employer).

In our 40 years doing executive search in the U.S., our firm has never had a client come to us, asking us to find U.S. employees who would work as self-employed subcontractors. However, for foreign hires, this does sometimes come up. The employer simply does not want to hire lawyers and accountants here and abroad to set up legal entities in a certain country, but they do need a dedicated employee there on the ground. Often these roles involve sales and business development, but it could be for any role.

Sometimes they do plan to set up a legal entity in the future, but only after local employee #1 has built the market and given HQ confidence to make the investment.

But when I hear a Human Resources Manager tell me, “Yeah, and what we want to do is, at the end of the month, we’ll just wire the person’s pay,” I feel a burst of stomach acid well up from my gut, momentarily causing me to clear my throat before responding. OK, here we go again.

• First thing, are you sure that you want to hire someone in such a tenuous status? From a recruiting standpoint, it is not everyone’s favorite choice to set up a business to just get a job. So that takes off the table most of the best possible candidates, who are already working successfully at your firm’s competitors, getting normal compensation, benefits, opportunities for corporate promotion, etc.

• A person may ask: “If a company doesn’t want to invest in me or our business here, how can I present that lack of commitment by the company to our local customers and partners?”

• In some countries, it’s easy and not too problematic to set up a self-employment company, and some people would like the opportunity to do so. But in some countries it is near illegal for a person to register as a business in which the person only serves one client. The myth of self-employment is in those jurisdictions regarded by authorities as an attempt to deceive. That pronouncement could have legal repercussions on the local citizen and the client (employer) and perhaps also on local customers, suppliers, and partners.

• There could be significant legal risks for the subcontractor if something goes wrong in the business dealings between the client/employer, the subcontractor/employee and the local customer. One example might be that product sold to the subcontractor arrives from the U.S. client too late, defective, in poor quality, etc., and the local customer sues. Sues whom? The subcontractor/ employee, because there is no other legal business entity.

• In some countries, especially in some countries in western Europe, it simply is not professionally well regarded to be in this kind of employment status. Again, the best candidates might refuse the job.

In the event that the target country does not allow for easy U.S.-style self employment status, then the U.S. employer could have a variety of problems when “simply hiring and wiring payment.” The company might find a person who is willing to accept payment in that manner and s/he might claim to take responsibility for legalities, such as accounting for income, paying taxes, make allotments for pensions, etc. to his or her national jurisdiction. But what if the person does not fulfill national legal requirements and just receives payment from the foreign company? That person might be taking a perilous legal shortcut and just take the money and not report it, avoiding taxes. Maybe s/he was sincerely willing to set up a company but found that too much cost or paperwork would be involved, so s/he might let things go too far without taking care of legal mandates.

Fast and easy shortcuts can cause a significant risk to the U.S. employer, but one way of avoiding some of these problems is to hire a local firm as the Employer of Record or Agent of Record. That firm would be officially the employer of your subcontractor. You would remit salary to that firm, along with their service fees, and their responsibility would be to pay your local person and to account for taxes, pensions and other mandated local benefits.

What does that service provider do? They might be a local law firm. They might be a local accounting firm. In fact, in some countries, they might conduct legal business in any sort of trade.

Companies might decide to use a foreign payroll company or perhaps a foreign office of a large U.S. payroll company as the “Employer of Record” or “Agent of Record” when they hire a person in another country. Typically the payroll companies (nómina companies, in some Spanish-speaking countries) are contracted for local sales managers or sales representatives, where a company sees a need to hire a person to maintain or grow their business, but the company does not want to set up a legal entity in that country.

In any case, if you do choose the route of using a payroll company as the EOR or AOR, then it is imperative that you try your best to vet them, including their corporate history, legal entity in the target country, and their processes and assurances to both you and your subcontractor (employee).

When a U.S. company wants to hire through a third‑party  Employer of Record (EOR) or Agent of Record (AOR), the due‑diligence process should focus on these broad areas:

   Quick Due‑Diligence Checklist

•  Company background – years in business, ownership, financial health, insurance coverage.

•  Jurisdiction coverage – confirm legal presence or vetted partners in each target country.

•  Compliance documentation – sample contracts, proof of local registrations, tax filing procedures.

•  Security & certifications – ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR compliance statements.

•  Technology platform – demo of payroll/HR portal, integration options, data‑storage locations.

•  Service Level Agreements – payroll timing, issue‑resolution SLAs, penalties.

•  Cost transparency – detailed fee schedule, any hidden costs (benefits administration, currency conversion).

•  References & case studies – speak with existing clients in similar industries/jurisdictions.

•  Exit & transition plan – how employees are moved to your own entity or another provider, data hand‑over, notice periods.

The Importance of Due Diligence for U.S. Firms

When a U.S. firm hires international employees or contractors through an Employer of Record (EOR) or Agent of Record (AOR) provider, due diligence is essential to mitigate risks such as non-compliance with local laws, financial liabilities, data breaches, and operational disruptions. EORs act as the legal employer for employees, handling payroll, taxes, benefits, and HR compliance in foreign countries, while AORs (also known as Contractor of Record or COR) focus on managing independent contractors, including payments, classification, and tax withholding.

Poor selection can lead to penalties from U.S. authorities (e.g., IRS for misclassification) or international regulators. Focus on providers with owned entities in target countries for better control and compliance, rather than those relying on third-party aggregators, which may introduce additional risks and costs.

Key Areas to Evaluate in Due Diligence

Use the following checklist to assess potential EOR/AOR providers. This includes verifying credentials, asking targeted questions, and reviewing documentation. Start by compiling a shortlist based on your hiring needs (e.g., specific countries, employee vs. contractor focus), then conduct interviews, reference checks, and contract reviews.

1. Legal and Compliance Expertise

• Confirm the provider has owned legal entities (not just partnerships) in the countries where you plan to hire, ensuring direct control over compliance rather than reliance on subcontractors.

• Verify adherence to local labor laws, tax regulations, and employment standards, including ongoing monitoring for changes (e.g., minimum wage updates, leave policies).

  For AORs, ensure accurate contractor classification to avoid misclassification penalties under U.S. and international rules.

• Check for compliance certifications (e.g., ISO 27001 for data security, GDPR/CCPA for privacy) and audit processes.

• Questions to ask: "How do you stay updated on employment law changes in our target countries?" and "What is your process for handling audits or disputes?"

2. Global Coverage and Infrastructure

• Assess the provider's presence in 160+ countries if needed, but prioritize depth in your specific markets (e.g., expertise in EU data protection or Asian labor laws).

• Evaluate if they offer end-to-end support, including visas, relocation, onboarding, and termination, plus recruitment if you lack local talent sourcing.

• For scalability, confirm they can transition from EOR to PEO (Professional Employer Organization) as your team grows, allowing you to establish your own entity later.

• Questions to ask: "In which countries do you have your own entities?" and "Can you support both employees and contractors in the same markets?"

3. Financial Stability and Pricing Transparency

• Review the provider's financial health through public records, credit reports, or references to ensure they can reliably handle payroll and tax remittances.

• Demand clear, itemized pricing without hidden fees (e.g., setup costs, currency conversion, or exit fees). Compare flat-fee vs. percentage-based models.

• For AORs, check handling of local taxes like VAT/GST and invoicing compliance.

• Questions to ask: "What is your full pricing structure, including any markups?" and "How do you handle currency fluctuations and tax withholdings?"

4. Data Security, Privacy, and IP Protection

• Ensure robust data protection policies compliant with GDPR, CCPA, or equivalent, including encryption and breach response plans.

• Verify intellectual property (IP) safeguards, especially for tech firms, to protect your company's assets in international hires.

• Questions to ask: "What security protocols do you use for employee data?" and "How do you ensure IP rights remain with our company?"

5. Reputation, References, and Performance Metrics

• Research client testimonials, case studies, and ratings (e.g., Net Promoter Score). Request references from similar U.S. firms.

• Check for any past litigation, compliance violations, or negative reviews via online searches or databases like Better Business Bureau.

• Evaluate customer support responsiveness, including SLAs for payroll processing (e.g., 24/7 access) and dedicated account managers.

• Questions to ask: "Can you provide references from clients in our industry?" and "What is your average response time for support queries?"

6. Technology, Integration, and Contract Terms

• Assess platform usability for payroll tracking, reporting, and HR integration.

• Review contract details: Localized employment agreements, termination clauses, liability limits, and exit strategies (e.g., data transfer upon ending the partnership).

• For AORs, ensure flexible contractor management tools, like automated payments and compliance dashboards.

• Questions to ask: "How does your platform integrate with our systems?" and "What are the terms for contract termination?"

Summary Checklist Table

Involve your legal, HR, and finance teams in the evaluation. Consider starting with a pilot in one country to test the provider. For U.S.-specific concerns, ensure the EOR/AOR aligns with federal requirements like OFCCP for diversity or IRS rules for tax reporting. If hiring contractors via AOR, prioritize providers experienced in U.S. misclassification avoidance to prevent reclassification as employees. Always consult a U.S. attorney specializing in international employment for tailored advice.

How HR Can Identify Real Headhunters

(and Avoid the Traps)

HR Training Module — 2026 Edition

By Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C.

How to Choose a Real Headhunter in 2026: A Practical Training for HRTeams

• Understanding the modern recruitment landscape

• Avoiding common traps

• Selecting the right recruiter every time

Why This Training Matters

• The phrase “Executive search” is no longer a guarantee of recruitment quality. It is frequently used more as a marketing term that today is used by good recruiters, bad recruiters, and by firms that have absolutely no idea what proper executive search is about, while using the term to sound worthy of your business.

• Many recruitment firms, including “famous retainer firms,” rely on job ads, junior staff, and offshore teams (“the research department”) to do the actual work of a client’s key recruitment. In the past they might have done executive search almost exclusively, but now often their tool-bag for recruitment openly includes job ads, low-cost remote outsourced firms, AI, and other methods.

• Cross‑border searches often involve split fees, poor communications, and slow results

• HR must protect the company from poor recruitment practices

The Core Principles

Hire the Recruiter, Not the Firm

• Firm branding ≠ search quality

• The individual recruiter determines the success of your key search

• Evaluate that person’s experience, mindset, methods, and integrity

What a Real Headhunter Looks Like

7–20+ years in your industry or closely related sector, working as a headhunter.

Important: Although HR recruitment and agency executive search recruitment are related and with seemingly the same ultimate goal, a company’s HR department has a vastly more detailed and complex corporate organizational development mandate, while a proper agency headhunter at best is trained to be very narrowly focused, being both at the service of HR’s corporate needs and the candidate’s career.

The agency recruiter comes in with a similar but a very different view of recruitment, compared to HR’s perspective, where ultimately, the pressure by hiring managers to urgently fill a position can take precedence over many important considerations. The wrong person might be hired in the interest of time, but a good headhunter should be able to spot and identify potential pitfalls in a particular candidate, and s/he should mention such matters in advance of a hire to the client. This is why your headhunter needs to have an ethical compass.

The job of a headhunter is different from that of a sales person, who might be your first and only contact at a recruitment firm, often disguised as a "headhunter," "executive search consultant," “partner,” etc. That client-facing person's role is mostly to capture your business, and s/he might have less training or interest in finding the right person for a job that is right for a candidate's career and also your firm’s long-term business mission.

The person whom you are dealing with might even have come out of your same industry, but that in itself means little in terms of headhunting training. A person who simply worked in the same industry does not automatically possess the experiences that your firm needs in a carefully done executive search.

The career of a headhunter involves years of directly observing the logical intersection of a person’s career path and a client’s business mission, with a careful eye on both the client and the candidate being happy together.

An Advisory When Dealing with a “Famous Retainer Firm":

• Make sure that you are not being “handled” by a “Handle”

At some retainer firms, certain people are internally known as “Handles.” What is a “Handle?”A handle is something that can turn or move or leverage something larger. In the case of a retainer firm wishing to gain a large guaranteed exclusive advanced payment (retainer) from a potential client, the firm typically will assign a person from that employer’s industry, most often a retired industry person from any field, perhaps including a former Human Resources person or Sales person.

That person is called “The Handle,” meaning that that person’s role is not to function as a real headhunter – because s/he is not trained to do so – but rather to win the client’s exclusive retainer business under the pitch that “I’m from your industry or I used to do what you do, so….” Their pitch is to provide comfort and assurance to the potential client. “S/he’s from our industry, s/he understands our needs, s/he is so well connected and knows everyone.”

The authorization of a large non-refundable retainer payment is thus won due to a virtual guarantee of success by virtue of perceived common relationships, rather than by results. The winning of the retainer is the reason for the existence of a retainer firm. The placement of a candidate, good or bad or middling, is secondary. The employer that agrees to pay 2/3 of a full fee in non-refundable retainers is then locked into this uncertain fate, and the employer then would need to wait and hope that a tolerably acceptable candidate could be found and placed.

There is nothing wrong about a retainer firm hiring a non-headhunter from any industry and having that person make sales solicitations or marketing presentations to employers in the former industry.

At best, a firm doing so is showing interest in the target industry and is legitimately wishing to capture their business for very lucrative high-cost guaranteed exclusive non-refundable retainers.

If, however, that person is described as a “partner,” “headhunter,” “recruiter” or as “executive search consultant” who would conduct your search assignment, then they are being at least partially deceptive.

Sometimes a small retainer firm will hire a person from an industry that they don’t really know well, in the hope that s/he will bring in business. Typically, such people do not last more than a year at such firms, because they simply are not trained to do headhunting and ultimately, “knowing everyone” really means not knowing how or where to find a specific candidate for a specific search.

At certain “famous retainer firms” the industry person is generally not hired to bring in business personally. Instead, it is the branding of the firm itself that will bring business, and then it’s up to the “Handle” to turn the crank,and convince the employer to authorize payment of the retainer.

If your “Handle” comes from your industry, knows everyone (maybe even you!), why is there a need for a costly and non-refundable retainer to “conduct research into the existence of possible candidates?” If the “Handle” says that s/he knows everyone in the industry, what is then to be researched? Why would that research cost so much and take so much time?

Why indeed is there even a need for a “Research Department” at a retainer firm if their partners and “executive search consultants” and “recruiters” and “headhunters” are themselves competent recruiters and headhunters who “know everyone?”

A Good Headhunter should:

• Have deep knowledge of competitors and potential talent, with an ability to search beyond those contacts

• Use Direct‑Approach headhunting (no ads)

• Personally conduct the search

• Be honest, and make candid evaluation of candidates

What a Fake Headhunter Looks Like

• Needs to use job ads to attract applicants

• Outsources research to junior or offshore teams

• Passively accepts the job description that you send, asks no probing questions about the vacancy, about the business mission, about the existing team, about the former incumbent, or about the hiring manager

• The focus is on getting a retainer or on you signing their contract, rather than having a “meeting of minds” between you and the recruiter, in which you and the recruiter devise an intelligent strategy of recruitment

• Pushes candidates to the client to fill roles quickly (and pushes jobs on candidates)

• Avoids answering direct questions

The Job Ad Test

If they use job ads, they are not a true headhunter.

• Ads = lack of network, an admission of having no candidates or other way of finding candidates for your vacancy

• Ads = lack of industry knowledge

• Ads = passive recruitment, relying on mere luck for placements

• Ads = slow, low‑quality results

The Research Team Trap: “Our research team will handle that” = Red Flag

• Junior staff does the real work, but often over-worked, under-paid, under-trained

• Increasingly located in low‑cost underdeveloped countries where the subcontractor likely has no direct experience in your firm’s industry

• High turnover, low expertise

• Heavy reliance on job ads

• The recruiter you meet is not involved in the actual “search." Like you, that person might be waiting for candidates to appear asap, but why are you paying that person to sit and wait for their "research department?"

The Global Network of Offices Myth: “Our Partner office will support the search”

Reality:

• Traditionally, inter-offices searches involve the fee being split between the originating office and the remote office that does the search, even if all are company-owned offices. (Note: many are actually franchisees that may share same corporate logo and marketing, but they might in fact be different entities.)

• Distant office traditionally gets half the fee (or much, much less if the search is outsourced to a firm in an underdeveloped country; hence the trend toward using the lowest paid offshore recruiters)

• Motivation drops if the remote office only gets part of the fee. Would you work as hard if you never met the other party and if you were only paid a fraction of what you would be paid on your office's own full-fee cases?

• Junior staff run the search, and if they don’t have knowledge of your industry, or haven’t spoken with you, how do they know who is a good candidate for your search?

• Job ads are used

• Timelines stretch from weeks to months

Why Split Fees Matter

• Half the fee = half the urgency. Small fee = even less concern, even lower quality and priority

• The employer never meets the person doing the recruitment work

• Miscommunication between offices is easy, especially if in different languages

• Lower quality candidates might be offered because the mandate on the remote recruiter is to simply provide any candidates. Even if the remote office recruiters are qualified to do some kind of executive search, the reality is that they have no long term direct relationship with you, and that emotional distance might result in less than ideal candidate options.

• Slower results

• Poor alignment with the employer’s needs

HR’s Role in Protecting the Company

HR must ensure:

• The recruiter has deep experience working as a headhunter

• The recruiter does the work personally

• No job ads are used

• No offshore researchers are involved

• No split‑fee cross‑border hand-offs

• The recruiter can explain their methods and time-lines clearly

A Funny Story about the term “Headhunter”

What is the origin of the word “Headhunter?”

The term was originally coined as a grisly humorous reference to certain tribes who seek out people “for their heads.” In the executive search industry, an executive search headhunter was a person who specifically sought out a specific candidate, as opposed to being an employment agency staffer who only understands recruitment as placing jobs ads and waiting for some candidates to respond.

• Ads placer ≠ Headhunter, but like “executive search,” the term “headhunter” has been mimicked by people doing non-headhunting recruitment (eg. placing job ads), in order to fool the employer

• Originally from the U.S. executive search industry, the word “headhunter” is now used in many languages natively to refer to a recruiter who, more often than not, is mostly just placing jobs ads.

• In some countries, there is a confusion about the borrow-word “headhunter,” which is one word. You might see some people laughingly refer to themselves as “Head Hunters.” But they are not the Chief Hunter of anything or anyone! To such persons, it perhaps sounds more authoritative to describe themselves as “Head” (ie., Manager, Boss), but that only shows their utter unfamiliarity with the role of a true Headhunter. In this case, Head Hunter is just a throwaway title.

The HR Interview Script

Ask Questions to Expose Weak Recruiters

• “How many years have you personally recruited in this industry or for jobs like ours?”

• “Do you ever use job ads?”

• “Who will conduct the search day‑to‑day?”

• “Based on our job description, and on what I’ve told you, what types of candidates do you realistically expect to find?”

• “Will the search be split across offices? How is the fee divided?”

• “Which competitor companies would you plan to target first?”

• “It’s OK if you don’t have any candidates in mind now, but from your experience, what candidate profiles do you expect might be the right fit for this role?”

• “How do you evaluate whether a candidate is truly right for the role?”

• “What are your fees, retainers, and guarantees — and what do you stand to lose if you fail?”

Red Flags HR Must Never Ignore

• “We’ll post the job to attract talent”

• “Our research team will support the search”

• “We have a global network of offices” or “we have a partner based in [the same continent, or the same country] where you need the candidates to be found.”

• “We use a mix of methods”

• Is the recruiter forthcoming with ideas regarding possible candidate profiles? Does s/he sound like s/he understands the challenges of the search? Does s/he understand what your company’s business culture is like vs. that of possible candidates?

Cross‑Border Search Checklist

A cross‑border recruiter must:

• Know the target country’s business style, and if different from yours, s/he should explain what to expect from candidates or from the search itself, because original JD conceptions might not produce candidates

• Receive the full fee

• Do the work personally

• Know local competitors or companies to target

• Never use job ads

• Never outsource research

Decision Tree (Part 1)

• Step 1: Identify the industry and role

• Step 2: Find recruiters with 7–20+ years in that niche

• Step 3: Ask if they use job ads

If yes → reject

Decision Tree (Part 2)

• Step 4: Ask who will do the work

If not the person you’re speaking to → reject

• Step 5: Ask if the search is split across offices

If yes → reject

Decision Tree (Part 3)

• Step 6: Ask which competitors or types of source companies that they will target

If they cannot answer immediately → reject

• Step 7: Ask what they would do if candidates at competitors are not interested or unavailable

If no ideas → reject

Decision Tree (Part 4)

• Step 8: Ask how they evaluate candidates

• Step 9: Ask about similar searches (this is to see how the recruiter reasons, adapts and how s/he understands your search and company’s business mission)

• Step 10: Choose the recruiter who:

  • Knows the industry or market

  • Knows the competitors or potentially good source companies

  • Knows where the most likely candidates work

  • Never uses ads

  • Does the work personally

  • Has integrity

  • Has a proven track record

Fees & Guarantees: The Hidden Truth

• Retainers often guarantee the recruiter’s fee, not your results

• Many retainer-focused firms require 50–66% of the total fee to be non-refundable (start search fee + shortlist fee) — even if they fail to make a placement

• “Research fees” contradict claims of “knowing everyone.” If you “know everyone, what’s there to research?”

• Guarantees often promise activity, sometimes quantity, not quality

• Sometimes additional fees might be for “Research Fees” or “Advertising Fees.” So what expertise is your firm really paying for?

• Are you essentially paying a very high fee to a firm that can do what your own TA department can do itself, and with similar or better likely results?

The Retainer Test

Ask:

• Is the retainer non‑refundable?

  • Is it due before any candidates are presented?

  • Does it cover “research”?

  • What happens if the search fails?

• What does the agency stand to lose?

If the recruiter has no risk, they have no urgency. They simply need to send resumes of moderately tolerable candidates to fulfill the contract. An HR Manager that engaged that kind of firm might ultimately be pressured to hire one of their “finalists,” if only because the search went on too long and so much money had already been paid

A Side Note About a Headhunter’s “Industry Experience”

We have mentioned that a headhunter should have had experience in your industry. However, what if your industry is a small one or is new? Any long-standing executive search recruiter has seen ups and downs in the industry and it is simply not feasible for recruiters to survive financially if the sector had not been hiring, if it is too small, or if your particular search requirements are infrequently requested. Ideally, slow periods in an industry cause mediocre headhunters to leave the field.The survivors remain with knowledge of your industry, but also bring knowledge of many other industries. That larger understanding of industry, markets and business might be useful to your search.

The question then is this: can a good executive search headhunter do your search properly, even if s/he is not living and breathing your industry 24/7 for years and years? The answer is…. maybe. Everything then really would depend upon the overall training, experience and attitude of the headhunter.

When speaking with a headhunter, then what might matter most is the quality of their thinking and comments and questions about your search need. A headhunter with an engaged, vigorous and active mind can be a fast learner of new industries, because s/he would be applying the well-established methodology of executive search by the direct-approach method.

The method of using a direct approach of candidates does not specifically require the headhunter to start as an expert in your industry, as long as s/he truly applies the same formulas of candidate identification, evaluation and selection that normally work well in other searches, even if not in your specific industry:

• The recruiter should inform you if s/he does not have a lot of experience in your particular industry, but the recruiter should be prepared to tell you within a few days as to their ability to conduct a proper search, by identifying your competitors or company types that might have the right kind of candidates for your need.

• The method of proper executive search does not vary too much from industry to industry, location to location, or job category to job category. An accomplished headhunter knows that what matters usually involves the same issues that a person and a company need to ascertain before hire. The accomplished headhunter will know to look for the same factors, even if the candidate search is in a new or different industry or location:

  • Has the candidate done the same or similar enough role as needed by the client? How successfully?

  • If the job is a unique role, does the candidate’s work history and attitude show that s/he might be a quick learner? Why specifically?

  • Is the candidate serious about making a job change? Are the motivations found in the opportunity, in money, or urgency due to imminent layoff or disagreements with a current employer?

  • Is the job and company realistically better than the candidate’s current situation? Why? Why not?

  • Are the candidate’s business style and personal preferences compatible with the business model of the client company and with the direct hiring manager?

  • Will the candidate require more or less support than what s/he typically has had before in order to accomplish this job’s objectives with your company?

  • If the headhunter sees problems involving any of the above points, s/he would want to settle them with the candidate and discuss these points with you prior to a presentation to the client.

Summary: The Gold Standard

A true headhunter:

• Is hunting for your future employee in the likely places where one would expect to find good candidates (typically competitor firms or industry-related firms) as well as in little known but very suitable sectors. Hunting has nothing to do with sitting and waiting for a lucky resume to come in. That is not what you pay a headhunter to do!

• Has deep experience as a headhunter using the direct-approach method of executive search

• Has a real network of possible candidates and, more importantly, of industry insiders who trust the recruiter enough to recommend strong candidates

• Conducts direct‑approach searches personally

• Never uses ads

• Never outsources research

• Protects both employer and candidate

• Delivers fast, high‑quality results

Final Takeaway

• The right recruiter saves time, money, and business outcomes.

• The wrong recruiter costs all three.

HR’s job is to know the difference.

January 19, 2026 - ©2026 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

As a person with 40 years serving good, bad and ordinary Founders, I can say this: humans currently average 2 eyes for their vision to focus. Yes, I know that technology might genetically or mechanically soon rapidly give us more than two eyes, or it might blind us altogether, but for now, "your" vision probably is only at most 50% of the total vision possible for your company. A Founder's ego along with the assumption that "this is my company" are fatal notions to the true growth potential of a company, because all possibilities for a company are thereby being wrapped up in the life experiences, assumptions, fears, and ignorance of a single person. There is a wide angle or panoramic possibility of seeing business, but that simply cannot spring from one person's eye.

Often The Founder (and yes, a capital "F" is typically required here) is burdened by the day to day realities of starting a company, but whom could The Founder trust to provide different ideas, perspectives and experiences to overcome a company's problems or to grab opportunities? Nobody??? Only The Founder knows everything??? Real, deep possibilities for a firm can better arise if a founder (note the small "F") allows the "second eye" to also have a voice, even if only as an anonymous Suggestions Box in the break room. Listening to others in one's business and outside is the best way to have two or more eyes looking clearly at the horizon.

Maybe I am wrong about everything. Maybe I am a dinosaur with weird ideas about humility. Maybe I am wrong about trying to learn from people who know more from me or even from idiots who occasionally are right. Maybe it is just foolish to think that the right path is about being humble enough to admit that maybe I don't know everything.

I am willing to admit that I might be wrong here, but my admission itself might show that I am not suitable to advise The Founder. Hmmm, to be always right, or to not always be right: that is the question. Whenever I read the resume of a recent university graduate who proclaims that s/he is a "VISIONARY THOUGHT LEADER," two things come to mind. First, what kind of job could this person do if s/he has never worked in a job but is already a "thought leader?" And Second, I am hounded by a memory of my university days, when a classmate asked me if I was good at a particular task, and the conversation went like this:

Me: "Only a fool would brag!"

Classmate: "Only a fool wouldn't."

That was during what THE MEDIA in the U.S. characterized as "The Me Generation." Today they would be called "Boomers" in English, but in actuality they are the mothers and fathers, maybe grandparents, of today's university fresher claiming to be the all-knowing, all-seeing visionary leader of everything and over everyone, without having actually done or thought anything special.

Recollecting my real-time observations on the degeneration of countries, people and companies away from real qualifications and true records of success, to a culture of braggadocio just for the look and feel of success, I think I'm going to stick to my original theory, that anyone, including a company's founder, simply is not the alpha and the omega of all knowledge or creative ideas. This used to be an ordinarily accepted idea in the non-totalitarian world. Obvious. What Euclid of Alexandria might have called a "postulate." Really simple basic stuff.

But "what used to be clear and obvious isn't really good for business" - is this what they teach in B-Schools? Does the world of business today only belong to the madman, who, left to his or her own devices, will unashamedly trick funders, vendors, customers or staff into laying down their trust to passively ride in the hull of the crash-test madness of an entirely ego-driven vain business person?

Every day I see good companies, bad companies and middling companies. I am often amazed and humbled by a company's founder who built a firm with little and made it a great place to work or to do business with. For my company, these kinds of companies are the ones that we depend upon, because they appreciate that we find similar-minded people who bring their own real-life experiences and visions, to the benefit of founders who eagerly want to listen to them.

December 3, 2025 - ©2026 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

BizGeography101: How Businesses Mis-imagine the World

Part 1 - NOAM (North America: U.S. & Canada)

First off, I have yet to find any person residing in North America who normally speaks of being a "North American." When Americans and Canadians are speaking together, one might say things like "here in North America" or "the revenue for North America is X." Perhaps if there is a US-CAN gathering, folks will be collegial and speak of "North Americans" doing this or that. But outside of such events, Americans normally will identify as Americans and Canadians will usually consider themselves Canadians. I say "usually," not only because there is an active pro-independence party in Québec, but also because I have memories of driving through Newfoundland and seeing some houses flying the Maple Leaf national flag, more the Newfoundland & Labrador flag, and most flying the Union Jack, recalling the time "before Newfoundland was forced into Canada."

This contrasts quite noticeably with Europe, where large swathes of people across the continent might describe themselves as Europeans, and where many companies describe themselves as European firms, rather than German, Dutch, French, etc., even if most all of their staff and business activity is based in their HQ country. And in many cases, legal, employment, and financial frameworks are increasingly being harmonized on a European continental level. This distinction in N.A. is important to note,, particularly for European employers, when recruiting an "Americas Region General Manager" or "North America Sales Director," because as far as most legal and practical reasons are concerned, business practices and legal processes in any N.A. country could be quite different from the next N.A. country.

"North America" is sort of a convenient fiction whose frontiers are defined by the speaker. Businesses might speak of "North America" as being the U.S. and Canada only, because there are indeed many economic and cultural similarities between these large and prosperous, largely English-speaking countries; but Mexico is in North America, as is Central America, as are the countries of the Caribbean. And Mexico, Canada and the U.S. even share membership in a free trade bloc that 99% of North Americans could not name offhand called USMCA. USMCA is a re-engineered NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Area).

Regarding NAFTA/USMCA, some Europeans erroneously believe that employment visas between Canada, U.S. and Mexico businesses work somewhat as they would within the European Union. The legal situation in this region is very different, especially in the U.S., where the paperwork involved in moving a Canadian or Mexican to a U.S. business unit can be costly and time consuming to an employer.  Also, hiring an American, Mexican or Canadian to be a "North America Regional Director" would not automatically mean that such an employee could easily and legally work or conduct much business in any of the other USMCA countries.

Businesses might be tempted to circle on their maps the U.S. and Canada as "North America," because honestly, these are easy choices. But the reality is actually quite different. In the province of Québec, where francophone kids might play baseball in summer like a lot of other "North American" kids, they and their families nowadays consume a lot of France-originated media, so many of their cultural, political and business conceptions are now at least partially informed by European models. In turn, a lot of French businesses find a comfortable home in Québec, thereby creating more intercontinental bonds between those two societies. But if, for example, a French firm sets their N.A. HQ in Montréal, by no means would that office location automatically guarantee them the best launching pad for business across  anglophone N.A.

Particularly in the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico, there are strong business and cultural links blurring borders between those two countries, while legal differences remain. In fact, because of significant immigration from Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean - as well as the rest of the world - to both the U.S. and Canada, there are substantial communities from all those countries across the U.S. and Canada, thereby enriching and making more complex the strategies of marketers who only thought of North America as just a large, easily known market.

So what is North America really and where should a non-N.A. firm base its N.A. location? For the moment, I am going to only discuss North America as the U.S. and Canada, because this is how a large number of businesses conceptualize their business maps of the world today, but that is an admittedly simplistic map.

A N.A. location that might seem comforting to a foreign employer might be the wrong place to staff and manage their North American business.

In my experience, it is amazing how many companies' ruinous business assumptions started with their incorrect assumptions about geography and local business cultures. One of our firm's strengths is that we work with everyone everywhere, and by so doing, we have learned the important unique distinctions of one person or one location versus another. When we do candidate-company matches, we look for candidates who can serve as human bridges between HQ and the target customers. But amazingly, many employers often have upside-down or out-of-date notions informing them.

Here are some noteworthy mistakes that we have seen:

*** A UK company that wanted to hire a "North American Sales Director" in either Toronto or Boston. Nothing immediately wrong here, but that firm sold products to the petrochemical sector, which in North America would be based in places like Houston, Tulsa, Calgary or Edmonton. Why did they require candidates to be in Toronto or Boston? We were told that the company's executives liked that Toronto or Boston were short flights from London. "Yes, but, there are no suitable candidates in those cities." (Can you guess why that firm is no longer in business?)

Hiring candidates located in places that are more convenient  to HQ managers than to customers is a frequent and very under-reported problem in world business, and it is not by any means limited to North America. This is a problem of fearful or lazy management that doesn't want to travel a few more hours to meet their customers. It's also a misunderstanding of the physical vastness and multi-polarity of business in North America.

We have seen European firms in the CPG or food sector wanting to base their US office in New York, when most of their fiercest competitors and most suitable candidates were in Chicago. We have seen Asian firms wanting to base their US office in Los Angeles, when Texas, Ohio or Georgia offered far better choices of more relevant candidates to build their U.S. businesses. We have seen a Canadian firm trying to recruit only in nearby Buffalo when they should have also considered the larger U.S. for top candidates to build their business. Even Cleveland or Detroit were too far away from their comfort zone.

Chief lesson: the business should be prepared to hire knowledgeable people who know their target customers well, not simply people who happen to be in a place convenient for HQ people to visit. Typically, the ideal place to recruit is where one's competitors and customers are most active.

***A medium sized American consumer products company with a limited budget that needs a Canada Country Manager and disregards the fact that a substantial percentage of the customer base largely needs to be reached in French. It's easy for an American hiring manager to hire a unilingual English-speaking Canadian, but if they had also considered additionally recruiting fully bilingual managers, they might have had greater and faster reach into the whole target market.

Chief lesson: Hiring your twin can be a risky move. Do not surrender any potential market simply because it is different from your own. Hire someone whom you can trust to guide your firm to that larger customer base. "North America" is a much more culturally diverse and complicated market than it might seem. The opportunities are great if the right person is chosen. Who is the "right person?" It is a person who knows what you do not know already! It's a person who has a long track record at your competitors selling successfully to your target customers in the region. If you could do this yourself now, then you don't need to hire anyone else.

***U.S. sales territories, as defined by American companies, often disregard important local or regional or sub-regional distinctions. For many companies, the urgent mandate is to just hire someone in that territory and if the person fails or under-performs, HQ's misunderstanding of such geographic realities is never to be blamed. The blame will fall on the employee, not on the decision makers who chose the wrong definition of the territory.

There are too many examples here of blunders like this, but here we go:

--- A "Regional Sales Manager" who is indeed in the right region of the U.S., but  is based in the wrong location in that region.

• California Regional Sales Manager. If the customers or competitors are principally in Silicon Valley, having a San Diego based sales manager could mean that the sales manager is in the wrong place and also might not have the right SV sales contacts. Similarly, if the job really ought to be based in Orange County or San Diego, but they decide to hire someone in Sacramento, because, well, it's all in California.

• Eastern Regional Sales Manager. If the customers or competitors are in the Boston area or in Northern Virginia, but the sales manager is in Long Island or New Jersey, the sales manager would have heavy travel and might not come in with the right contacts in the target areas.

• Southeast Regional Sales Manager. Miami is a loooong way from Nashville, TN. The South is very wide and varied and it is best to hire someone familiar with the likely customers now.

• Midwest Regional Sales Manager. If most of the firm's customers or competitors are in Detroit, hire candidates in Michigan. If most are in Minneapolis, hire in the Twin Cities. If mostly customers or competitors are in Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, or Sioux Falls, look first in those areas. Should be a simple formula, but too often missed under the generic "Midwest" rubric. As there are many Southeasts, Northeasts, Californias or Southwests, there are many Midwests.

• Western Regional Sales Manager. The company really wants to hire someone in Los Angeles, but at salary levels more similar to Dallas levels or lower. The job goes unfilled until the firm hires someone in Seattle, who leaves six months later because the travel was too much and the pay wasn't worth it.

Chief lesson: When considering regional territories, a company must take into account realistic differences of compensation, along with customer and competitor location. Too often employers feel hurried to "just fill the vacancy." Neither the candidate nor the employer would appreciate that the job is burning out the employee due to unreasonable travel or that the learning curve for breaking into unknown markets is too long to be profitable.

***One final thought. Many companies based outside of the U.S. erroneously believe that the cost of establishing a U.S. office for sales would be too involved or too expensive. As a result, many companies needlessly avoid this huge continent-sized market. Solution: hire a person for the start-up office who would be legally self-employed. Unlike many countries, in most states of the U.S., it is relatively easy and inexpensive for a sales person to register as a business. This option, although not ideal, and not attractive to many candidates, could be a way that a foreign firm could start their U.S. presence.

June 25, 2023 - ©2026 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

BizGeography101: How Businesses Mis-imagine the World

Part 2 - LATAM (Latin America)

Seems pretty straightforward? Yes, but that would be, or could be, a costly error to a company. The Latin diaspora of talented managers in places like Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, New York, Chicago, etc. has many excellent candidates to head LATAM regional sales, finance, supply chain, operations or other business units. In theory, these candidates, typically bilingual or trilingual, are good for firms that need managers who are intimately familiar with the Latin American markets, while also being formed by or very accustomed to, the business practices of the United States. Moreover, the U.S. Spanish-language market is huge and alone has a purchasing power that is greater than that of many Latin American country markets.

What to do with so many good choices? In my experiences as a recruiter, in many cases I have seen companies make the wrong decision when it comes to determining who will run their LATAM unit, and where that unit should be based. The examples are too many, but let's try some of the more problematic choices:

1. "Miami (or Los Angeles or the U.S. city of your choice) is the capital of Latin America, so the LATAM regional office shall be run from the U.S." In many cases, this might be an excellent choice. For example, if the firm primarily does not want to run their regional units outside of the U.S., due to local economic ups and downs, political instability, budget, or most especially if the company's Latin American business is heavily focused on the nearby Caribbean or Central American region, rather than on countries like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Peru or Argentina. If the firm's business with Latin America really is a purely sales function in which Miami would touch base with local distributors periodically, then that might work. Also, with Miami (or Los Angeles) being an important Spanish language U.S. media hub, it could be a great place for working with marketing and advertising groups in order to reach the U.S. Spanish-language market.

But if the intention is to run substantial operations or sales teams in Mexico, Brazil or other large countries, then Miami is really, from the customer's point of view, a distant and foreign place. For them, it would not matter if the LATAM Sales Head was a Mexican or Brazilian national. It would be like an American Sales Director or North American Regional CEO working out of Brussels or Tokyo. Yes, it might be done for a time, given the right person, but that is probably not what a company's competitors would do.

The Spanish language professional communities of Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Antonio, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, New York, etc. all have their own characteristics, and the one thing that they all have in common is that they are not physically where the non-U.S. customers are. That means that even the best sales person has to travel long distances to reach customers that a competitor can reach in a taxi ride. "How about we meet to discuss that proposal over a cup of coffee?" "Well, I'll have to book a flight first; I'll have to get back to you next week, because our travel manager is on vacation until next Friday." Given that Latin business cultures typically require close person-to-person relationships, having a sales head far away could be detrimental. Convenient for HQ org charts and for the local employee, but less desirable for the Latin American customer.

Companies deciding to base their Latin America market heads in the U.S. also need to consider the extra costs of employing a person at a U.S. salary, and add to that the costs of international travel.

2. "We do all our world sales work from our office, right here in Anytown, USA. This way, we all can work from the same page." This strategy might work for a small company, especially if it relies on national distributors abroad, but it is not the best way to significantly expand revenue. For that, it is best to have a Latin American regional headquarters or a person who is actually somewhere in Latin America.

3. "We have a person in Mexico (or Brazil) who handles sales in Latin America." How can I possibly complain about this strategy? Can I never be satisfied??? Well, of course in itself, hiring a sales person in Mexico or Brazil for a pan-LATAM role is, on the surface, an excellent and quite reasonable decision, since both Mexico and Brazil have the largest economies and populations in Latin America. Especially if the firm's current customers are primarily in Mexico or Brazil, this strategy makes a lot of sense. We would probably recommend it ourselves as a possible option.

But here is just one headhunter's observation, and it is seems to hold true throughout the world:

Most sales people, typically, best sell products that they know already fairly well to customers and markets that they already know well. Far fewer sales people are explorers and hunters who thrive at opening up new markets and calling on new customers. For the hunter-type sales person there can be financial risks to going beyond one's familiar territory. If you don't sell, you don't stay employed or don't fulfill your quota and don't get your bonus. So the easiest reward and the most common reason for a company hiring someone is on what and whom that person knows now, not on what markets they might possibly learn or whom they might possibly make into customers.

How might this notion then play out in the LATAM scenario of a Mexican or Brazilian in charge of all Latin America sales? Most typically, because of the size of their respective national markets, a Mexican LATAM sales head will focus first and foremost on Mexico sales, while a Brazilian LATAM sales head will focus on Brazil sales. The rest of Latin America might be of of less interest, so chances of revenue from large countries like Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, etc., might not be as great as one might have hoped.

Many foreign companies also take for granted that Spanish and Portuguese are similar enough languages for a Mexican or Brazilian to be able to effectively sell in that other language. Some people do learn the other language quite well, while others depend on distributors in the "other" territory or, worse, avoid it.

Think of it this way: is it most efficient for a firm to have a New Yorker selling to a Texas customer base or a Texan? Would a Texan or New Yorker likely be better selling to a British customer base than a British sales manager? And all of these examples are within the English language. Portuguese and Spanish are not as as similar as dialects of English are to each other. And there is an astounding diversity in business practices across Latin America, even in the same language group.

In most sectors, the Mexican market is highly multi-polar. Depending upon the industry, a manager in Monterrey might be better placed than one in Mexico City, or one in Tijuana might be better located than one in Saltillo. Or vice versa. In Brazil, a tremendous amount of business is done in that vast country from the one city of São Paulo. Next comes Rio de Janeiro. Sales people in other Brazilian cities typically do not have national or international experiences. So a sales candidate even being somewhere in Mexico or somewhere in Brazil alone might not automatically prove a likelihood of sales success in their own country, much less all of Latin America.

But this is only from our point of view, having recruited and placed LATAM managers, directors, VP's, CEO's and General Managers for 3 decades.

If a pan-LATAM base in Mexico or Brazil would be best for our clients, we particularly look for Mexicans and Brazilians who have successful track records of sales beyond their home countries, because we are always concerned about the person only looking at their own country's market. Regarding language, in some industries fluency in the other language is not critical, while in others it could make or break a sale. We look to the client to tell us their experiences. If a truly trilingual candidate is needed, we often have found outstanding Brazilian managers who are fully fluent in Spanish, along with some native Spanish speakers who have worked in Brazil and do speak good Portuguese.

In Brazil, many of our searches also have been on behalf of German firms, and we often are able to present strong and competent LATAM candidates who additionally have good German language skills and familiarity with German business practices.

If the client's LATAM customer base and strategy is more flexible than a Mexico or Brazil base, we recruit top managers in most all LATAM countries. Again, we look for outward-looking managers who have track records of success in their home countries and beyond.

4. "We need a sales representative in Mexico (or other LATAM countries), but we do not at this time want to establish a formal legal entity or office there. Instead, we would just like to hire a person there who would be self-employed as a consultant, and we would simply wire that person's payments monthly."

This is typically a request by predominantly American companies that are coming from a local experience where in the U.S. it is very easy, legal, and not unusual for a self-employed person to register as a business. In that way, the person would be working for the firm as a consultant, not as an employee, and the person would personally be responsible for handling taxes, pensions, and other issues. While in the U.S. this is considered a common scenario, although not ideal for most candidates, in Mexico and many other LATAM countries, such a status might not be legal. One solution, available in some countries, would be for the firm to hire a local payroll service provider ("nómina company"), which would be the legal employer of record and that would be involved in disbursing payments as well as accounting for national pension and tax payments to the government. A few of these payroll companies are local divisions of large international payment processing firms, while others are smaller local firms, often specialized in certain localities or industries.

5. "We want to base our LATAM Sales (or Finance or Operations or Supply Chain) Head in a location other than Mexico or Brazil. We have found that Colombia (or Panama, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, etc, etc.) are good places to set up business and the costs are reasonable." Again, we ourselves have recommended our client companies to consider this option if it served them well. But that is with the caveat that they do not really have too much pressing interest in the very large markets of Mexico or Brazil. While some people in these other countries could be outstanding as LATAM heads, if the firm absolutely needs their LATAM manager to have experience in Mexican or Brazilian business, some candidates in these countries might have a bit of a learning curve in handling business in Mexico or Brazil.

"(Sigh) Well now, Señor Bob, what do we do, since you're saying that all of our choices are wrong?"

The point here is that what always matters is the individual candidate's capabilities and the individual company's specific business goals for Latin America. There is no single easy solution. A headhunter, HR Manager or hiring manager should never base a Latin America hiring decision simply on the place where the person is located. When we do our LATAM regional candidate-company matches, we consider candidates from the entire region. And yes, also including U.S. based candidates.

What do we look for when recruiting for Latin America regional positions?

• we ask what are the specific characteristics of the client's current Latin American market development so far and what are the firm's expectations for the LATAM market in the next years.

• what has worked for the company? what has not worked?

• what problems has the firm faced in the region?

• to what extent would this person need to directly develop customers and markets across 20+ LATAM countries? Or would the person's role be mostly about managing national and regional distributors? Also, how attentive and how effective have your current distributors handled the region for your firm?

• is very strong trilingual ability (EN-SP-PT) really required?

• what specific countries (or regions in those countries) are of greatest importance? what regional customers need to be reached now?

• what countries and markets does the firm hope that the new LATAM Sales Head could bring in?

• most critical of all: a good, trustworthy communicator around whom a regional team could be built or a sole contributor who could be the cornerstone of business in Latin America

• an empathetic personality who truly can thrive beyond his or her familiar market or country; someone who truly can see the many opportunities in all of Latin America for a company's business.

A few final notes. A company needn't "cover" this entire region all at once or with a full "Latin America" designation. In the case of many firms, it might be more efficient to have various markets report to HQ. From such a report structure, the best managers for a pan-LATAM regional head could arise.

We are well experienced in recruiting at the sub-region, country-level, or regional country level. Such positions might focus on territories like "Latin America North," "South America," "Andean," "Central American," "Southern Cone," "Northern Mexico," "Central Mexico," etc.

June 26, 2023 - ©2026 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

BizGeography101: How Businesses Mis-imagine the World

June 27, 2023 - ©2026 Atlantic Research Technologies, L.L.C. All rights reserved.

Our background on the Asia-Pacific region. The first region of the world that our firm recruited in beyond our own region of North America was the Asia-Pacific region. That was in the early 1990's. Our first assignment was to find a General Manager of an American electronic components firm who would be in charge of a 3,000 person factory. The incumbent was an American expat whose workday was largely spent squirreled away in his office, rarely appearing on the factory floor. I should add that he was not paid very well, perhaps deservedly under the mindset that "you get what you pay for."

Initially our client wrongly felt that we should find a local candidate at that salary level or lower. We then recruited every GM, Plant Manager and Manufacturing Director in the country's semiconductor industry, and we presented the top three candidates, based on their industry experiences and management philosophies. Our client ended up hiring the person we thought was the best one - a local candidate working at a competitor to our client, already with a salary that was twice what our client paid their incompetent incumbent expat. Our client strongly preferred this candidate, and they offered him a substantial raise to join their firm, believing that he would be a great investment. He was! His great turnaround skills fixed the Philippines unit and his management system served as a model for the firm's first China plant. Our candidate remained for more than 10 years on the job, until he retired, a few years after the the company was acquired by a top semiconductor firm.

Since this series focuses on errors that companies make in recruiting in countries other than their own, the main lessons from this client's case are these:

• Salaries are always related to the scarcity of suitable candidates and the value that a particular candidate potentially could bring to a company. If you have a poorly performing manager at salary X, maybe, but not always, that salary in itself should not be seen as the default salary for that job. The objective is to hire a capable manager whose work will impact revenue far beyond his or her salary. The objective is not just to disburse X amount of money to some office-holder. The low salary in itself might be a reason why only the "wrong candidates" are attracted to that job.

• in Asia especially, many foreign and yes, many local Asian companies as well, get bitten by the "bargain fever" bug. The notion goes something like this: "In foreign country X, the average wage is a fraction of what it is in our country, so when hiring, do not offer more than the average wage for the job." Here's the problem: a foreign firm cannot afford to hire an "average manager" to run their unit, unless their objective is to run a company by the same standards as an "average" local firm.

• It cannot be over-emphasized that risk of a key hire is minimized if the candidates considered have worked at a competitor firm and, ideally, in a very similar business and corporate cultural mindset. This would or should seem plainly obvious, but many companies do not take such things into account, and they later discover that their key regional hire's management style is inconsistent with that of HQ. In one case, where we recruited a U.S. business unit CEO for a multi-billion euro European firm, our client strongly preferred not only candidates who had worked for European firms, but candidates who ideally had familiarity with their specific business culture (Nordic), because, according to them, "our style is a little different."

• In doing a recruitment search for a key Asia-Pacific Head or manager, it is important to never take the easiest route to hiring. A simple online jobs advertisement followed by a fast video interview and an offer? Is that how you really want to hire a General Manager to run your Asian business or a Country Sales Director? All for the sake of getting the task over with fast? Please, for both the candidate and for the company, it is important that the right choice be made. There should be multiple interviews with multiple regional and HQ managers, so that both sides could get to know one another well. The candidate must start out with a similar approach to running and expanding the business unit, but the way to determine that is through careful consideration, not speed.

• Experienced and capable expatriate candidates might be the right choice for some companies, but in most countries of Asia there are outstanding local candidates who might be even better at creating a regional vision for the business. As with any recruitment, a company must consider an individual's personal track record and capabilities. There is nothing about a passport or nationality that automatically conveys competence or success.

A few decades ago a noteworthy world business publication asked me, "Should being posted as Asia-Pacific Director be considered a hardship posting for an expat?" I was pretty shocked by that question, and I told the reporter that that question reminded me of the old whiny complaint that some Western expats had that "it's terrible that a cup of coffee at a hotel in Tokyo costs $20." Such notions came from the idea that "it's just so hard" for a foreign manager to perfectly replicate his or her life at home in Asia.

My approach is this: if you are working in another country and find it unbearably hard to replicate your old life, then please quit your job, for which you are undoubtedly paid more than you would be at home, and get on the first plane back home. Then your sufferings could be alleviated and your job could be filled by a person who really can focus on what's important. Maybe even another expat!

Just to address the all-important issue of the cost of hotel coffee: eat and drink where local people eat and drink. If they drink tea, drink tea. If you cannot break yourself of the habit of eating all your  meals at your hotel, then how can you really manage your region and reach your customers? I know my comments here are simplistic, but they point at a big problem that many foreign companies have: is your regional team really at the top of their game?

Our firm has recruited throughout the Asia-Pacific region - from India to Southeast Asia to Greater China to Northeast Asia to Oceania. We have recruited in nearly all industry sectors in the Asia-Pacific region. We recruit not only in national capitals but also in most major cities. We recruit local and expatriate manager-level candidates. Typically our local managers have worked at leading foreign firms and they are fully English business-fluent, with many being multi-lingual. Many local candidates have studied at leading regional and Western universities and business schools and many have worked outside their own countries.

When we are asked by a company that wants to set up a new Asia-Pacific headquarters, naturally the first question that we ask is: where would your Asia-Pac HQ be located? In one case, in May 1998, an American software company came to us, seeking a VP Sales and Marketing for Asia-Pacific, but they did not know exactly where to base the position. They needed a few days to think about where to locate their office.

We asked them the extent of the sales territory, in their company's expectations, and they responded: "From India in the west to Australia in the east. So then we'd like it to be in the center, in Indonesia." Indonesia is a great country, but in May 1998 the country was embroiled in furious political demonstrations as well as horrible riots. Moreover at the time it was not where the largest pool of pan-Asia-Pacific software sales heads were to be found. That was Singapore, and that is where we recruited an outstanding VP Sales and Marketing for our client.

Surprisingly, many North American and European companies enter the Asia-Pacific market without properly understanding national cultures, or actual business, economic or political realities. Then, once settled in, sometimes too late, they discover big problems with their choice. That's why we try our best to work with our clients early on to discover the best location for their immediate and longer term plans for the Asia-Pacific region.

Great candidates for pan-Asia-Pacific roles could be found in nearly any Asian country, but the ability of that person to be most successful could be held back by local political, cultural, geographic, legal, or economic factors. Ignoring reality is not good for business. And sometimes a company has to make hard choices, balancing pluses and minuses, as far as a key Asia-Pacific recruitment.

In the decades that our firm has recruited in Asia, we have seen many positive changes, which impact on the recruitment strategies of our client companies.

• In general, the English language skill level of managerial and staff-level candidates has tremendously improved  in all Asian countries. In South Korea, for example, managers with good English were not easily found twenty years ago, but a generation later, there are many excellent bilingual candidates, often having been educated or having worked in the U.S., Canada, Australia or the UK. Many also are fluent in Japanese and Mandarin, making those candidates very valuable for Regional Head roles. There also are numerous candidates in Korea nowadays with good German or French skills, with many bringing work experience or education from Europe.

• More importantly than just having good English, is that the business training and managerial outlook of many in the managerial class is more international and outward-looking. Managers are very clued in as to what goes on in Silicon Valley, Amsterdam, Munich, Dubai and the rest of the world and they are often coming in with best-in-class business styles, motivations, and methods.

• Once very tightly controlled trade policies in some countries, such as were found in Japan, have eased, and it is now easier for foreign firms' products and services to compete on an equal footing with local firms.

• There are more managers who have worked in pan-Asian or regional Asian business models, where it is common for business units to be multiculturally organized and managed and where there might be integration of different departments and teams crossing national frontiers. For employers from outside of Asia this can be especially helpful, because firms could expect to find the best and the brightest managers who will already have professional contacts and colleagues across the APAC region. A small or medium sized foreign company, powered with that kind of manager in Asia, could hit the ground running and be better equipped to build a formidable APAC team

• One country is implementing a great leap backward, quite systematically, to the great detriment of its populace, its neighbors, and the world community. Decisions made, especially in recent years, have wiped away growth expectations for many local and foreign businesses, taking with them career opportunities for millions of talented people and their families. Altogether, these moves have in turn fundamentally caused world businesses to look for alternative regional solutions for their Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, R&D and other operations.

• What if you base your company's APAC HQ in a location where English skills in the managerial class are not very common? Would you have a sufficient number of suitable candidates for your needs?

•  What if English was very commonly spoken - comforting to you in HQ - but the location was at a long distance from other Asia-Pacific markets, thereby adding costs to sales efforts?

• What if you feel that you have found the perfect Asia-Pacific location but the standard of living in that country is much lower than that of some wealthier Asian countries? You could find that your Regional APAC HR Managers and other APAC Regional Heads might often conclude that "everyone is overpaid" in those wealthier Asian countries. Salary conflicts of this type are common the world over, including Canadian or UK salaries versus comparatively higher US salaries.

• English skills alone do not matter if your Asia-Pacific managers are not great two-way communicators. What am I referring to? Because the Asia-Pacific market is important for the overall success of most foreign companies, it is imperative that the local managers not only be good at transmitting headquarters' business culture and expectations to the local staff, but that the local Asia-Pac managers be empowered to tell HQ about the regional staff's and customers' needs and challenges. Although times have changed rapidly in Asia, it still is often relatively common in some cultures for it to seem rude for a person to say "No" to one's boss, or to tell the boss about bad news. In fact, the world over, most people are not usually encouraged to tell their firm that they need to change strategies or that the big boss made a mistake.

• There is one last frequent hiring error that I'd like to mention in this post. It is a mostly American tendency to recruit the Asia-Pacific sales territory as if the incredibly diverse Asia market were no different than would be a recruitment for a U.S. Midwest Territory Manager. In fact, I have often been sent a standard U.S. regional sales manager template job description for Asia (as well as EMEA and Latin America). I understand that the reason for this, in part, is just that an opening came up and the handiest JD was that of a U.S. regional sales manager. That is not the problem.

There are many Asia-Pacific organizational business structures to choose from.

As tempting as it might be to lop everyone into a single Asia-Pac report framework, whenever possible, we recommend that firms consider sectioning off similar regions, unless the firm is small or unless it would make more sense logically to do otherwise.

These regional chiefs might report to a sub-regional head or directly to HQ, if that might work better. The bottom line is that political, economic and social differences in the Asia-Pacific exist, as they do elsewhere, but ignoring these matters for the sake of simplicity might be a very costly error. Perhaps the most successful sub-regional heads could compete for the big job of Asia-Pacific Head. That could give a firm time to evaluate individual and business unit achievements, rather than rushing to find an Asia-Pacific HQ "somewhere between Mumbai and Sydney." ;-)

Some sub-regional structures that we often suggest:

--Northeast Asia: Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Mongolia

--China plus Hong Kong, or in sub-regions:

South China (Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangdong & Fujian, etc.)

Eastern China (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Nanjing, etc.)

Northern China (Beijing, Tianjin, Northeast, etc.)

Western China (Chongqing, etc.)

--Southeast Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines

--India and South Asia

--Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands

As we mentioned in earlier articles in this series, the ultimately correct recruitment strategy comes with first reviewing what a company's goals and resources and expectations are in the region. The unique requirements, business objectives and budget of each company is what matters most. And as far as the candidate(s) chosen for key Asia-Pacific managerial roles, it is the individual, not the person's country that matters most. Each country has magnificent managers who "think beyond the typical" and these are the candidates that we most pride ourselves in identifying and presenting to our clients for their key positions.