Starting out as an international blue-coillar recruiter may feel like shouting out into the void. In addition to the complexities of international hiring, negotiations, paperwork, and juggling between potential hires and happy employers, it’s actually hard to build brand recognition, local presence, and above all, finding talented candidates.
As discouraging as this all may look, the right approach can turn things around and make even the least experienced international recruiter into a force to be reckoned with on the scene. And to help you turn that vision into a reality, here are a handful of examples of how some of Hire Abroad’s recruiter partners have managed to reach 20+ placements per month within only a dozen of weeks.
Blue-Collar Recruitment: From Zero to Hero
Building a sustainable and successful business takes time. Experts agree that establishing yourself as a recruiter may take anywhere from six months to a few years. Understanding the basics, setting up work, specialising, being a good leader, and determination are all essential to achieve tangible results and these do take time.
So, how can you gain such traction on our platform within only months? Let us tell you right off the bat that we don’t offer any magic formula. It’s also not by luck or by buying leads. These results come from repeatable, field-tested strategies that turn effort into momentum, and transform said momentum into hires.
So, here’s what our success managers have gathered from dozens of first-time recruiters who mastered the Hire Abroad platform within months.
How to Go from 0 to 20 Placements in 3 Months
The first 90 days are critical in any job, and recruitment is no exception. It doesn’t matter whether you are coming back to recruiting after a longer break or starting your career fresh, the first three months help you lay down all the habits that will help you achieve the desired results in the long term.
In our experience, the recruiters on Hire Abroad treat this window like a launch sprint, with a clear system, focused energy and an opportunity to learn.
What kind of system are we talking about? Here’s a breakdown of what we’re referring to:
Month 1: Build Visibility & Trust
This is the “setup” period, during which you familiarise yourself with the platform itself and create a solid infrastructure that will help you maintain a consistent influx of reliable candidates.
- Familiarising Yourself With Hire Abroad
First things first, you need to understand how Hire Abroad works. With continuously-evolving features and user-friendly initiatives, our platform is in constant motion, always aiming to make your job easier. But even then, you need to understand basic functionalities and how to navigate the platform to make the most out of it.
- Exploring Facebook
Posting in niche Facebook groups next to general job boards is a good way to start. We’ve already talked about various specialised groups where expat blue-collar workers have built a community on the internet, and why it is important to join those groups. It’s one of those primary expansion tools and a great way to get a better feel of the scene. Here, you can explore how other recruiters are working, what kind of vacancies they offer (and where you can create value), along with getting a better understanding of the candidates’ needs.
To get a head start, feel free to reach out to group admins for collaboration. This can come especially handy in the long run. Simple things, like pining one of your vacancies to help you build trust with community members.
- Create a Habit of Responding Swiftly
Whether your candidates are reaching out to you or need to hop on a call with someone from our team, we always recommend being committed and responding to every inquiry personally, as fast as possible, but preferably within 12 hours.
This shows commitment and a high level of self-organisation. Additionally, candidates will perceive you as a high-profile professional, building trust in the process and rapport.
- Be Prepared With The Right Information
Having job info packs prepared for your vacancies in the form of comprehensive Google Drive folders with job descriptions, salary breakdowns, a list of necessary documents, and photos of the job site and accommodation are all essential tools to make you stand out, look professional, and reduce candidate doubts in the initial phase of the recruitment process.
While you may have limited information at the beginning, as time goes by, you can gather even more to your portfolio, such as employee testimonials, and other pieces of information that showcase hands-on experience with the job, employer, accommodation, or even means of transport to get to the country.
Month 2: Expand Channels & Referrals
Now that you’ve set the base of your operations, it’s time to grow your pipeline and build momentum.
- Test Different Platforms
In addition to your go-to job board and Facebook groups, you can also get more experimentative and test different country specific platforms. For instance, if you’re from Portugal, you can take a look at OLX.pt or Net-Empregos. The point is to test out different platforms to see how well they perform in general or for specific blue-collar roles.
- Gather Feedback From Employees
Don’t break contact with successfully placed candidates. First, they can help you get valuable insight you can then share with potential candidates who are applying for the same company or role. Second, down the line, they may get in contact with you when they are looking for their next role.
Lastly, you can ask them to share vacancies with their friends and offer small referral bonuses to sweeten the deal.
- Embrace Automation
You don’t have to do every task manually. Even if you aren’t a tech-wizz, there are a few things you can do to make your job easier. For instance, setting up a few basic WhatsApp automations such as welcome messages and follow-up reminders can be great to keep candidates engaged.
Month 3: Optimize & Repeat
Both your basic and advanced channels are set up, now it’s time to take a closer look at everything and improve what you can and tweak to perfection what already goes great.
- Analyse The Results
Be thorough and analyse every channel you’ve set up. See which bought the best results and the most talented applicants. See what it is you can optimise to further improve candidate influx and see if there are any tweaks you can implement into channels that are underperforming.
However, don’t force channels that continuously come up short. If something isn’t working it’s best to move on and put in effort into something new in addition to keeping the best-performing channels firing on all cylinders.
- Improve Vacancies if Necessary
Ask your candidates for feedback regarding the job ads themselves. Are the descriptions and working conditions clear? Candidates may often give you valuable insights into specific things that you might need to change, elaborate on, or clarify differently. Optimising your offers can eliminate hesitation, build trust and answer common questions upfront.
- Embrace Assistance
Even if you have the necessary experience and pipeline to keep your momentum going, it’s never a bad idea to have another set of eyes examine your progress and ecosystem. Even the most efficient recruitment systems can do with some extra optimisation and that’s where your sessions with your Hire Abroad success manager comes into place. If nothing else, they can help you create a strategy to expand into new regions or roles.
Most first-time recruiters who reached 20+ hires weren’t marketing experts. They just followed these steps with discipline and care.
Platform Strategies That Help Recruiters Ramp Up Fast
Again, Hire Abroad isn’t a magic trick for recruitment success. However, it does give you access to top-notch job offers from the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. We also offer valuable help in the form of by-weekly success managerial meetings in which we aim to take the guesswork out of sourcing.
That said, here’s what we see working:
- The “group mining” method: Recruiters use Facebook to search for valuable groups (using search hacks like (“job + city + nationality”), where they post value-first content. This means optimised job posts with value-enriched hooks such as “Want a job with free housing in NL?” to engage group members and to drive conversions.
- The WhatsApp funnel: This is all about setting up simple automations on WhatsApp. Recruiters start with an auto-reply (“Hi! Thanks for your interest, here’s the job info 👇”), then follow up 24 hours later with an open-ended message (“Any questions? Would you like help applying?”). This structure gets higher response rates than cold calling and creates a sense of engagement without being overly pushy and requiring too much manual work from your end.
- Weekly offer rotation: Most successful recruiters post the same job to 2–3 new channels each week instead of spamming one group repeatedly. Fresh eyes always mean fresh candidates.
- Local-language tweaks: Use native phrasing from candidate countries. A simple shift, like changing “job” to “oferta de trabalho”—can triple visibility on Portuguese channels.
Stories from Recruiters Who Rejoined After Failing
Sometimes, things simply don’t work out the way they should the first time around. Maybe the strategy was lacking crucial elements or something was off with organisation. These things happen, but that doesn’t mean that things can’t improve the second time. That said, some of the strongest recruiters on our platform today were once dropouts.
Take one of our recruiters, who started last year, made only 2 placements in 3 months, and stopped. This year, she rejoined with a clear plan: limit her focus to only cleaning and production jobs, only candidates from Portugal, and only Facebook and WhatsApp.
Now? She’s averaging 7–9 hires per month.
Or another successful recruiter, who failed because he tried to do everything solo: graphics, outreach, screening, admin. When he came back, he brought a friend to handle screening and his placements doubled.
The takeaway? You’re not a failure if it doesn’t work at first. You just need structure, support, and a narrower focus.
Final Thoughts: Building a Talent Pool Isn’t Magic But Method
You can’t outmaneuver hard work and the first steps are always the most difficult. But the recruiters who stick with it, follow the process, and ask for help don’t just build talent pools, they are the ones who build careers in the end.
At Hire Abroad, we’ve supported dozens of first-timers and returning recruiters who now operate at the level of established agencies. The only difference? They followed a smarter system and stayed consistent when it counted most.
Ready to ramp up your recruitment success? Your success manager at Hire Abroad has the exact tools and playbooks to help. Reach out to us if you want to learn more about our platform and how we can help you.
