To aid migrant candidates, hire for attitude and train for skills

Johann, can you tell us about your experiences in matching migrant candidates with European employers?

From the company side, there is a huge interest to rise to the occasion and help Ukrainian refugees find meaningful work in Europe. Within the first week alone, we had more than 400 companies registering on imagine-ukraine.org, and after just two weeks we already had more than 2000 matches—that is, companies reaching out directly to our refugee talent.

For refugee talent, part of the challenge is that their qualifications and experiences are not recognized, and they might have to take more junior positions then they are qualified for. But, at the broader scale, it is often a bit of a struggle to adjust to local customs when it comes to the well-worn rites and rhythms of job application processes. Use a photo or not, include religious or marital information, or prepare for lengthy interview processes—the customs and thus also the ways to succeed vary from country to country, even in Europe. When immigrants apply for jobs and get some initial rejections, they hardly ever receive any feedback from employers, mostly due to legal reasons. For Imagine Foundation, this was our initial area of focus—using a digital tool, we provide candidates with a 360-degree screening process, and they receive actionable feedback on their tech skills, soft skills, their CV, and LinkedIn profile. These are very practical suggestions that in our experience often drastically increase people’s chances of finding a meaningful job, reduce the anxiety and agony of drawn-out application processes, and instead empower refugee talents to take their destiny in their own hands.

How can we use these experiences in the current refugee crisis?

We are facing the largest migration wave in Europe since World War II. According to the United Nations, within the first month of the war approximately 4 million people fled Ukraine. But besides Ukrainians, there are also people fleeing from Russia and Belarus. Many of them will need to enter the job market, but employers will face challenges in calibrating their skills—as for now they don't know how to evaluate previous experience, skills, and qualifications. Let me give you an example: my family is currently hosting a Ukrainian lady, Natalia. Back in Lviv she was a senior university lecturer. For a German company it would be highly challenging to hire Natalia, as they don't know what her experience equates to and how to make use of her skills. Whereas Natalia could possibly work as a marketing or HR generalist within a few months after receiving help and guidance.

Many companies across Europe desperately lack candidates and the current situation offers a real opportunity to help people in need. And there are additional layers of complexity. Eighty percent of adult-aged refugees are women, and often they are responsible for children. So in addition to hiring refugees, companies should consider nonstandard hours at first, to recognize these new workers have many demands as they settle into new environments—often supporting family members who also fled on short notice.”

What can companies do? What would be your recommendation?

Let me start by saying that we see a massive interest and enthusiasm among employers. But posting a job offer, say, for a Java developer position which a company has not been able to fill for months is not a solution. What we really need here is an attitude of active sourcing, eagerness to connect with candidates, to evaluate their skills and analyze if they can fit into the company’s needs. Now is the time to do what we and HR departments have set out to do for a while: hire for attitude, train for skills.

My recommendation would be to enter the ecosystem of organisations, like Imagine Foundation, and to take an experimental approach—let's start working with a candidate from Ukraine, Syria, or Afghanistan for two months. If it goes well for everyone, we can bring in other candidates that we may have previously overlooked.

Also, don't be intimidated by the visa process. Visas are just a mental hurdle that the majority of companies have never dealt with. In fact, the process is very lean and quick.

European companies are struggling with lack of tech talents and migrant candidates could fill that gap.

I agree, it's easier for tech people to connect with European employers and that's the reason why, at Imagine Foundation, we initially focused mainly on tech talents. However, it's not an immediate match at all. From the perspective of European employers, overseas candidates may have significant gaps, even on the tech side. For example, a Berlin-based start-up has a continuous improvement process, which our candidate never worked in. Or we have an engineer who never worked with Microsoft Cloud while London-based companies want someone more familiar with this specific knowledge. It’s easy to assume that a candidate does not fit and that someone with experience from the European start-up scene is much better calibrated. However, many of these pitfalls can be overcome within a couple of weeks.

And companies should not be mistaken and underappreciate the value candidates could add. Within a couple of months, they gain European market credentials and become an attractive target for the lateral hire.

Apart from becoming part of the solution to an unprecedented refugee crisis, what value can companies achieve in hiring migrants?

There are hundreds of anecdotal stories depicting how migrants made their way from rags to riches. Behind Apple’s iPhones, Tesla’s cars, and Pfizer’s RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are founders and innovators with a history of migration. Indeed, immigrants tend to increase productivity in most countries around the world, largely because of the diversity of perspectives, experiences, and ideas that they contribute when working closely with locals. On the company level, 45% of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant, and 50 out of 91 startup companies worth more than $1 billion had at least one immigrant founder. As of today, more than 3 million immigrants (skilled and unskilled) have become entrepreneurs, creating a total of 8 million jobs. Immigrants also contribute significantly to economy-wide innovation: since the 1970s, around 30% of all increases in per capita productivity in the US can be traced back to immigrants innovating closely together with locals. Countries in Europe and Asia see similar patterns, though at somewhat lower magnitudes.

About Imagine Foundation and BCG Henderson Institute

Imagine Foundation is a social startup based in Germany, dedicated to advancing global equality of opportunity. For the first four years, the foundation focused on digital coaching for candidates from the Middle East looking for employment opportunities in Europe. In response to the current refugee crisis in Europe, Imagine supports refugees from the war in Ukraine in connecting with European employers.

The BCG Henderson Institute is Boston Consulting Group’s strategy think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration from the Institute, please visit our Latest Thinking page and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.