Pitch employers to recruit displaced talent

A “pitch” is an opportunity for employer-facing organizations to learn about employers’ hiring needs, make the most compelling case to employers to hire displaced talent, and educate employers about the steps involved in international recruitment. The article below outlines key messages and strategies organizations can use to successfully pitch employers to hire displaced talent.

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Reaching out to employers with high potential

After your organization has identified employers that are high potential for recruiting displaced talent, it’s time to reach out! Below are some tips for outreach.

• Research the organization: Start the outreach process by researching the employer from publicly available sources. Beyond the basics of who they are, what they do, and where they are based, some helpful information might include:
  • What are the employer’s publicly stated values?
  • What are their current job postings?
  • Have they hired internationally before?
  • Does anything suggest they are disreputable employers?

• Identify the right contacts: Multiple departments or individuals in an organization may be interested in recruiting displaced talent. Wherever possible, it is helpful to secure multiple levels of support within the hiring organization. Commitment from senior executives helps ensure that hiring moves forward and necessary accommodations can be made where barriers arise because of a candidate’s displacement. At the same time, commitment from staff actively involved in the hiring process ensures that the recruitment process is thoughtfully executed and there is effective communication between parties. Interested departments might include:
  • Executives/owners – C-suite level employees have an interest in the overall health of the organization. They may see the opportunity to diversify their hiring pool to include displaced talent as a powerful opportunity to find competitive workers, as well as an expression of their organization’s values and broader social commitments
  • Talent acquisition staff – Employees focused on recruitment are often on the lookout to broker new partnerships and identify new sources of talent 
  • Diversity, equity and inclusion staff – DEI professionals may be key allies in helping their organizations understand the importance of making their recruitment processes more accessible, including to people who have been displaced 
  • Technical staff in skill-shortage areas – Lead technical staff (for example, engineering managers or kitchen managers) experience firsthand the challenge of underqualified staff and can advocate for expanding the recruitment pool to traditionally overlooked populations
  • Other employee champions – For any number of reasons, individual staff members may be particularly motivated by the cause of supporting displaced people to rebuild their lives.

• Frame your outreach to align with the employer and your contacts’ interests: Based on your research, you can describe the opportunity to recruit displaced talent to serve in hard-to-fill roles in terms that are most likely to resonate with the employer’s organizational priorities as well as your contact’s responsibilities.

• Localize and focalize: Make sure to adapt your pitch and materials to the employer’s particular industry and geography. Arriving at a meeting prepared with industry-specific data and experience can increase the employer’s confidence in moving ahead.

• Anticipate potential employer concerns: Employers may have previously had positive or negative experiences in recruiting talent from abroad or hiring refugees into their business. Employers may also have preconceived notions about the complexity of hiring internationally or biases about the talent and capacity of displaced people. It’s important to anticipate and be ready to address employer concerns. Common concerns include cost; certainty around timeframes; how to validate that candidates actually have the skills on their CV; how to ensure retention; and background check processes.

• Share success stories: Employers may not have been involved previously with displaced talent and could be skeptical about getting on board. Where possible, share compelling case studies and success stories focused on both employers (include company names if there is previous consent) and candidates.

• Make contact: Having a mutual contact make an introduction to a relevant employer can increase the likelihood that the employer takes note and responds. In cases where no mutual contact exists, LinkedIn or email are always options, as is showing up in-person at gatherings where employer representatives are likely to be in attendance.

How to generate inbound employer leads

• Make yourself visible: Advertise online and at in-person fora to maximize your outreach efforts. If you have the capacity to conduct online marketing campaigns targeting employers, you can use platforms like LinkedIn, pages within your own website, or other social media, along with Google SEO. In-person events will depend on your specific remit and scope.

• Adapt your messaging: In order to speak to the private sector, you may have to simplify your language to increase the chances of initially connecting to employers.

Tips for pitch meetings

Before you ever sit down to a pitch, whether remotely or in person, here are steps your organization can take to improve your likelihood of success.

• Get the right people around the table: The employer-facing organization should bring to the pitch people who are knowledgeable about the immigration process in the relevant country, as well as a general overview of skills available in the talent pool. Wherever possible, try to ensure that people hearing the pitch on the employer’s side have the seniority needed to authorize an international hire. If your contact is not the ultimate decision maker, ask how you can support them to engage the relevant person/s.

• Solicit basic information in advance to tailor your pitch: Before a meeting, it can be helpful to confirm where the employer faces the greatest talent shortage, whether or not they have recruited internationally in the past, and their current approach to talent acquisition.

• Tailor your pitch to the individuals in the room: For example, if you are speaking with a talent acquisition specialist, you may focus on the specific skill needs of the employer and the availability of skilled refugees to fill those needs. If you are speaking with someone from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) division, you may focus instead on the humanitarian impact of the program and diversity outcomes. If you are speaking to the CEO of a rural company concerned about population decline in their area, you may focus on the benefits of workers bringing their families and positive retention strategies.

• Prepare materials: Simple and well-designed materials can help guide a pitch meeting and make it easier for employers to follow along. Some helpful materials can include visual overviews of available talent and steps in the recruitment and immigration processes. In some cases, it may be helpful to provide sample CVs that highlight the relevance of the displaced talent pool to the employer’s hiring needs. Consider creating and using a range of communication materials, including pitch decks and website content.

Making the case for recruiting displaced talent

In some cases, you will have to begin by introducing the concept of displaced talent mobility, as it can be the first time employers are hearing about it. Consider the following tips for making a persuasive case about the impact of hiring displaced talent:

• Highlight available displaced talent: Many people know very little about displaced people, and false narratives abound. Here’s an opportunity to succinctly share the facts.
  • There are tens of millions of refugees around the world. Nearly half of them are working age. Most of the world’s refugees live in countries where they have limited rights to work.
  • Recent mappings have shown that there is abundant talent in displaced populations. The Talent Catalog is a digital platform that has captured the skills and experiences of tens of thousands of displaced people – ranging from engineers, nurses and software developers to welders, tailors, and butchers, and everything in between.

• Highlight the benefits to the business:
  • Tapping into a new talent pool 
  • Experienced and resilient candidates
  • High retention and loyalty
  • Increased diversity and fresh perspectives
  • Contribution to CSR and ESG goals
  • Positive morale impact on workplaces who participate (as employees build social connections with displaced workers and understand the life-changing, positive impact of the program)
  • Being part of an initiative that their competitors are benefiting from; companies generally don’t want to be left behind the competition, so it’s always good to name-drop other businesses in the same sector
  • Using a tried and tested model: hundreds of businesses have already hired displaced candidates through refugee labour mobility programs, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

• Outline a win-win solution: At its core, this is a simple solution:
  • Displaced people have talent but no opportunity to support themselves
  • Employers around the globe have open roles and struggle to find the talent they need
  • When displaced people can move internationally for work, everyone wins.

• Explain the immigration process and policy landscape: Beyond persuading an employer that hiring displaced talent is a good idea in theory, the pitch is an opportunity for your organization to reassure employers that this solution works in practice. Give employers an overview of available migration pathways to offer reassurance that there is government support for displaced talent mobility in their jurisdiction. Some key points to convey include:
  • Comparison to regular international recruitment: If possible, explain exactly how the migration process for displaced people will vary from previous international hiring experiences the employer has had, if at all
  • Government support: Let the employer know if the government has expressed willingness to collaborate on solutions to displacement-related barriers to migration for work
  • Application requirements: Give employers a very clear list of what actions they need to take and documents they need to provide to sponsor a visa
  • Cost: Give employers a basic breakdown of all the costs involved in sponsoring a worker from abroad. Frame costs as an investment that will secure long-term value in skills and talent, diversity and social impact
  • Timeline: Let employers know the expected timeline for visa processing and manage expectations about possible delays.

• Offer success stories: Bring the concept to life by sharing some stories of the win-win solution in action and the transformative impact on displaced people, employers and communities.

• Explain the potential for global leadership: Employers who recruit displaced talent are not only doing what’s good for business, they are generating a sustainable and much-needed solution to one of our era’s defining challenges. Hiring displaced talent creates a powerful opportunity to showcase the employer’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workforce, and to global citizenship.

Soliciting key information about the hiring business

The pitch is an important opportunity to build rapport with the employer while also collecting critical information that will help your organization best serve their hiring needs.

• Focus on the employer’s ‘pain points’: The more you can help an employer understand and articulate their own hiring challenge – and think about the financial, competitive, and strategic implications of not solving that problem – the more appealing a solution becomes. In addition, the more your organization understands the employer’s motivation for hiring, the better able you will be to communicate with them in terms of what matters to them.

• Draw out any misconceptions: In some cases, misinformation or misunderstandings may make employers reluctant to hire displaced talent. For example, some employers believe they cannot hire people whose country of origin is subject to international sanctions. If you sense some hesitation about moving forward with the hiring process, ask specific questions to get to the source of the issue.

Managing employer expectations

During the pitch, it’s important to help employers develop realistic expectations about hiring displaced talent. Visit our article on managing employer expectations for additional reflections on this topic.

Taking the next step

Getting to ‘No’

30 minutes spent figuring out that the lead is not a good fit for your program is 30 minutes well-spent. If the employer is interested in hiring displaced talent but is not ready to pursue international recruitment, consider connecting them to a local organization that connects employers with refugees or displaced people who are already in-country.

Getting to ‘Yes’

If an employer is enthusiastic about moving forward with hiring displaced talent, congratulations on your successful pitch! Visit our article on creating a Job Opportunity Intake.