Case Study: Recruiting in Mexico City

Blog - Mexico City

Client

International Banking Group

Position

Category Manager, Latin America region

Background

The client needed to make a vital appointment for a key area of indirect spend as part of their transformation project to develop a truly international procurement capability.

The role had been vacant for several months and was becoming an urgent requirement despite the best efforts of local agencies and the in house recruitment/HR teams.  The UK based hiring manager needed some fresh impetus in the process, ideally in the form of stronger candidates to consider and discussed the problem with us.

Despite us never having worked on roles in Mexico before, we were very confident that we would identify the most relevant candidates in the area quickly based on our previous success in other new locations and the transferability of our core recruitment methods.

Our Approach

Edbury Daley’s Head of Research, Raluca Pirvu ( an experienced international recruiter who is fluent in four languages) then worked closely with Andrew Daley to quickly assess the local talent pool and define a suitable strategy to identify and target the most relevant candidates for the role in question.

Our process included the following tools and techniques:

  • Conducted an initial assessment of the local talent pool using our global database and online research tools.
  • Using our in depth knowledge of the best international sourcing teams, we identified several target organisations to prioritise as part of our research for suitable candidates.
  • We spoke to trusted contacts in our existing network to seek recommendations and local market knowledge. e.g. our contacts in North America recommended current and former colleagues in South America.
  • We researched the cultural differences in the local recruitment market to understand how best to approach the most relevant candidates.
  • We prioritised six stand out candidates and engaged with them via e mail in the first instance due to the time differences.  We also approached four additional candidates with very relevant experience.
  • Any candidates that didn’t respond to our initial communication were followed up within 48 hours and where necessary a third time 48 hours later, resulting in all ten responding to our approaches.
  • Video and telephone interviews were arranged with the best candidates to assess their suitability, affordability and interest in the role.
  • All the relevant information was passed to the UK based hiring manager and local HR teams for them to assess and decide who they wished to prioritise for interviews.
  • We then liased with the clients HR team throughout the recruitment process providing the same level of support that we do with all of our work, in order to maximise the likelihood of the chosen candidate accepting our client’s offer of employment.

The successful candidate is now working her notice period before joining our client and her feedback on the guidance and support we provided to her is the source of great professional pride to our team here.

The key reasons why we have delivered effectively for our client on this and many other similar projects is that we know our markets intimately, we research any new geographical areas thoroughly, and then apply our tried and tested recruitment processes using all of our skill, tenacity and experience.