Located in Southeast Asia and home to a population of 70 million hardworking Thais,
Thailand offers various investment opportunities in Thailand and subsequently has been
attractive to recruiters. As an emerging economy, Thailand is considered to be a newly
industrialised country. Thailand is an anchor economy for its neighbours Laos, Cambodia and
Myanmar.

Given the growth of digitisation, mobile data consumption and foreign investment in
Thailand, have paved paths for business opportunities in Thailand resulting in demands for
roles in the healthcare & life sciences, consumer & retail, technology, Internet &
telecommunications and professional services industry have soared, making it the most
lucrative industries among job candidates in Thailand today.

Thailand’s present economic instability due to the pandemic has impacted recruitment in
various ways, and consequently, recruiting leaders in Thailand are struggling to carry on
with hiring a quality workforce. Hiring in Thailand might be similar to hiring employees for
your parent organization. Still, you would want to be aware of probable differences so you
could shape your organization’s practices accordingly. Listed below are some of the
recruitment best practices you should follow while starting a business in Thailand.

Finding the Right Fit

Every role is unique and involves a different approach. It might be by
searching a database, proactive headhunting, advertising the positions or a social media
campaign. Employing this process, you can reach out to a maximum number of applicants
and shortlist the best candidates. With the Thai economy changing at a rapid pace, even if
you open a small business in Thailand you would look for candidates having a strong sense
of accountability, confidence and experience, and candidates that are agile as well as
flexible when faced with changes and challenges.

Local Language and Local Currency

Even if your employees have some English background in school or college, you must use the Thai language in essential business communications, especially crucial documents such as hiring letters and contracts. Also, it’s advisable to use Thai baht for all the monetary items in these documents. These practices would ensure that your new hires or prospective hires feel comfortable and can understand the important details related to their employment.

Ensure established Processes

You would like to make a positive, impactful and professional
impression on your candidates, even if they’re located several time zones away. The best
approach is by using tried-and-tested processes. You should make yourself familiar with
various online interview platforms, and strategize about the pain points and topics that you
would like to cover with the time you have with the applicants.

Streamline your Scheduling Processes

Use the modern technology to your benefit so you could schedule interviews with your candidates quickly and use the timed saved for more pressing matters. Provide your applicants with an easy and automated way to log in for their dedicated time slots and if required reschedule the interview.

Consistency

As you’re meeting your candidates remotely due to the pandemic, ensure that
you treat all of them consistently. Keep your interviews for each candidate of similar lengths
and try to ask every applicant similar kinds of questions. You might vary your conversations
for probing into your interviewee’s strengths, weaknesses and background. Still, you would
like to ensure equitable treatment to all your candidates as you would during in-person
hiring.

Employment Contracts

One of the ways of staying compliant in Thailand when hiring is through an employment contract. This contract could be written or oral in Thailand. You can spell out the employee’s benefits, compensation, and termination terms in the contractual agreement before they begin work officially. In Thailand, working hours can’t exceed 48 hours per week, and employees aren’t allowed to overtime beyond 36 hours per week.
Employment compliances in Thailand also stipulate that an employee gets at least one
holiday in a week. Specialist HR companies can guide you on this if needed

Understanding Talent Beyond CV

With a bigger pool of talent, it becomes even tougher as well as important for hiring managers to appreciate talent beyond a few pages of resume to certify a position is a good fit. Recruiters would require more information about talent much in advance of making their initial contact. It implies they’ll require tools for better understanding applicants’ needs and desires, along with their qualifications. It’s not about just seeing candidates, but people.

Understand the Visibility of your Brand

A recruiter in Thailand need to understand that brand of their company might be viewed differently or maybe unknown to candidates outside of their local pool. A major employer in Bangkok may be unheard of in Chiang Mai.
Then, such a recruiter needs to understand that the internal drivers of a candidate in Chiang
Mai might be different from those in Bangkok. What persuades candidates in Bangkok might
not resonate in Chiang Mai

Leveraging Software in Recruiting

Leveraging software-assisted recruiting for going extensive with opportunities while managing volumes of candidates, avoiding biased decisions and spending valuable time to evaluate the right candidate. It’s the thing of the past of having a pile of documents and requiring human manual labour to go through each CV thoroughly as a step in HR operations. Recruiting software and tools today, reduce workload and enhance HR productivity via computers or smartphones or as per the convenience of the user.

Startup specialist Thailand

An alternative and effective way is to work with startup advisory services. A reliable consulting agency will take on the legal, administrative, and human resources work to hire new employees for your business, so you can focus on other important aspects of your business venture. Because a good business consultant in Thailand already has a well-established Thai presence. With a business startup consultant in
Thailand, you could start your business operations in Thailand sooner than if you go for the
hiring process by yourself in Thailand.

Contact Startup in Thailand for a no-obligation, FREE Business Consultation

Tips for Recruiting Candidates in Thailand

Avoid discrimination such as age and sex in job advertisements.
● Conducting background checks only with the prior permission of the applicants.
● Showing respect, the local Thai culture and environment and adapting to local
customs.
● Emphasizing branding as part of the recruitment strategy.
● Ensure to hire all types of workforce viz. skilled, semi-skilled as well as unskilled.
● Offering training and upskilling initiatives as required at different levels of the
organization.
● Employing modern technology for attracting Thai millennials.
● Reviewing the compensation package on an annual or a regular basis.
● Complying with ethical standards and ensuring to be a good corporate citizen.

Final Word

Every business requires productive and efficient employees, and every large-scale
organization or even a start-up business in Thailand wants to ensure that they are hiring
the best minds in their field. This isn’t a simple task and requires a lot of work.

Regardless of how successful your business is, you’re going to have some employee
turnover, which might be due to unhappy individuals or poor performance. You cannot
control people leaving your organization; however, you could do your best in hiring the best
people for your business.

Always remember, average people will help you in creating an average organization. And
you wish to be the best in the industry. So, you should hire the best talent. Getting this right
can help you in creating the best place to work in the long term while enjoying all the
commercial success. Contact Interactive Recruiters for any guidance or recruitment needs.

 

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