Advice on managing candidate immigration

Managing visa and immigration issues during candidate selection is essential for legal compliance, timely onboarding, budget planning, and the overall success of global talent acquisition efforts. It allows organizations to build a diverse and talented workforce while ensuring a positive experience for candidates throughout the relocation process. But it comes with numerous potential landmines that each can bring challenging situations.  

This collaborative article on LinkedIn, “How can you track visa and immigration issues during candidate selection?”, collects and shares expert insights into 5 specific areas from a select group of immigration professionals :

1. Knowing your visa types and categories
2. Screening candidates for visa and immigration readiness
3. Updating candidates and hiring managers on visa and immigration progress
4. Preparing candidates and hiring managers for visa and immigration challenges
5. Additional considerations

These experts share advice and experience that will aid you in minimizing risk, delays and excess costs. One of the first suggestions is that recruiters should have good knowledge of visa types to recognize which candidates would be eligible to work in the country from the start. They point out that understanding the basics of what options are available to your candidates and business leaders will help you to make educated and strategic decisions about your talent search. Another big piece of advice, offered by Conor McElhearn, is that “It’s crucial to identify early in a candidate’s recruitment process the specific immigration support they require and assess your organization’s capability to provide it...Many of these candidates face time constraints in their search and appreciate transparency regarding immigration support before progressing too deeply into the interview process.”

One last piece of advice that I personally find valuable is the importance of communication and expectation setting regarding any risks. Jared Knotts shares, “If you have a consistent timeline that most cases follow for immigration processing, you should set those expectations from the beginning. If there are risks, even unlikely (let's say less than 10% of cases) it is important to include the impact that these risks will have. Protect yourself and maintain reasonable expectations. Government processing can be a little sporadic even on a good day so make sure that you are optimistic but realistic when addressing potential risks and delays. If you have a plan B or C, you may want to share those options as well so that your stakeholders know you are prepared if something goes wrong.”

Some great information and advice to consider that will help you better manage candidate immigration! For more best practices relating to corporate immigration program, check this out.