International recruitment has never been easy. It revolves around a lot of different topics, from managing expectations to bridging logistical and cultural challenges, while creating a sustainable pipeline of committed and qualified candidates. On top of that, recruiters also have to build trust with new and existing candidates to maximise the success of past placements and increase the potential of great fits in future positions.
At Hire Abroad, we work closely with our network of recruiters to identify roadblocks early, help them stay on target, and turn potential into performance. Through bi-weekly check-ins, strategic guidance, and platform improvements, our Recruiter Success Manager, Milena Milidrag has uncovered recurring patterns in recruiter struggles and helped develop actionable strategies to overcome them.
Here are some of the most common obstacles our recruiters face and how the success team helps them turn those challenges into wins.
Top Challenges Recruiters Face
There’s a lot of talk about growing a recruitment business, optimizing your pipeline, improving communication, and even leaving the majority of tasks to AI. However, most of those articles offer little to no help in solving the actual problem and often, don’t even describe the concrete reasons why things aren’t working as supposed. This article hopes to break that cycle and offer actual hands-on solutions instead of banging around the bush.
1. Low Candidate Engagement and Dropout Rates
Many recruiters, especially those new to international hiring. Struggle with candidate ghosting. Candidates accept offers but later disappear or decline to start the job. This affects recruiter credibility and disrupts planning for agencies and clients. This isn’t a new challenge, as global data shows that 76% of recruiters reported they’ve been ghosted at any given stage of the recruitment process. In our experience, there are several causes behind this.
Key reasons:
- Candidates apply to multiple agencies simultaneously
- Lack of trust in unfamiliar agencies or platforms
- Negative online reviews (e.g., accommodation or salary complaints)
2. Uncompetitive Salary Expectations
Recruiters in our network regularly report that skilled candidates such as drivers, electricians, and welders are unwilling to relocate due to the comparable or even better salaries in their home countries, keeping in mind that back home, they often don’t have additional living expenses. On that note, even unskilled candidates can be sometimes hesitant if they think the wage transparency is unclear.
Lastly, technical candidates will most likely also have higher demands regarding work benefits, location, and housing quality. All this can make getting successful placements harder without well-matched offers or truly great working conditions.
3. Missing Documents or Poor-Quality CVs
Many candidates lack basic documentation (CVs, licenses), or don’t know how to format or submit it. This creates bottlenecks and lowers acceptance rates from clients.
While this may have not been a problem in the past, things on the labour market are changing. To create better experiences for both candidates and employers, agencies have been actively working to improve living conditions and the constantly rising wage rates lead clients (employers) to demand higher qualifications from candidates. This means full documentation, well-written CVs, hands-on experience, and better English skills overall, compared to previous years.
4. Platform Navigation and Feature Gaps
Some recruiters, especially those returning after time off or new to the platform, find it challenging to:
- Navigate advanced features
- Track candidate statuses
- Filter by location or qualifications (e.g., English level, driving license)
- Avoid duplicated candidate profiles
5. Agency Delays and Feedback Loops
Even the most dedicated recruiters can be hindered by inefficiencies on the agency side. One recurring frustration reported by recruiters on the Hire Abroad platform is the lag in feedback from employer partners. After submitting a candidate, recruiters often wait days (sometimes weeks) without any response. When updates finally arrive through monthly reports, the window for candidate interest has often already closed.
This delay can have real consequences:
- Candidates grow impatient and accept different offer
- Recruiters appear unreliable to jobseekers, damaging their credibility and diminish trust
- The momentum of recruitment breaks, leading to lost opportunities and lower overall placement numbers.
For instance, one of the recruiters pointed out how waiting for agency responses can result in the entire candidate pipeline stalling. He had cases where candidate interest cooled completely due to feedback delays, and he noted that many updates only arrived via monthly reports, making it nearly impossible to adapt in real-time.
Another active recruiter also raised concerns about response gaps and missing notifications. Despite successfully placing several candidates, she highlighted how unclear statuses and limited updates create avoidable inefficiencies, especially when she’s managing multiple proposals at once.
To mitigate these issues, our Success Team is actively:
- Relaying real-time updates from planners when agencies fail to respond quickly.
- Working with the product team to create notifications and real-time status changes inside the platform.
- Encouraging recruiters to reach out directly through Slack or planner support to fast-track decisions.
- Agencies are also encouraged to reach out to recruiters directly to make communication faster in crucial cases.
While we can’t control internal workflows at every agency, we’re committed to advocating for our recruiters — shortening the feedback loop and ensuring they’re not left in the dark.
Success Manager Strategies: Turning Challenges into Wins
To help our active recruiter network achieve its goals, our success team holds regular sessions to talk about their challenges and focus on solutions that help them overcome these obstacles. Below are some of the strategies we use to help our recruiters succeed.
1. Structured Bi-Weekly Coaching
Every two weeks, we have scheduled calls with active recruiters and discuss their progress and challenges. In these sessions, we set specific, achievable goals such as “2 placements every 2 weeks” or “1,000 hours in 3 months.” These targets help recruiters stay focused and accountable.
Here’s an example:
One recruiter had a solid candidate pool but was struggling to convert them into placements. During his coaching sessions, we identified that many of his chosen roles had high entry barriers, such as specific licenses or advanced English requirements. Together, we shifted his focus to warehouse and greenhouse jobs, which had lower qualifications and faster hiring cycles.
To keep momentum up, we introduced weekly Slack check-ins with clear placement targets. By setting a goal of two candidates every two weeks and guiding his market focus toward Portugal, Spain, and Romania, Jesús began to regain traction.
2. Platform Training & Feature Requests
Our system continuously evolves to become more user-friendly with more helpful features after each update. However, there’s always room for improvement. Whenever recruiters mention UX or functionality friction points, the success team acts:
- Implemented merging system to manage duplicate candidate profiles
- Improved visibility of active vacancies
- Collected suggestions for future updates like:
- Filter by English level
- Notification system for document uploads
- Simplified mobile access
3. Marketing Guidance
While sourcing candidates may seem like a straightforward task, the real challenge lies in standing out. This is especially crucial in a competitive cross-border recruitment market where candidates are bombarded with offers from dozens of agencies. That’s where our Success Manager steps in, offering recruiters customized, region-specific marketing strategies that fit their candidate profiles and available resources.
During bi-weekly sessions, we review what’s working, what’s not, and provide actionable marketing guidance recruiters can implement right away. This often includes:
Facebook Groups for Blue-Collar Roles
We guide recruiters to identify and join the most active local job-seeker groups, especially those targeting blue-collar workers in countries like Romania, Portugal, Spain, and Bulgaria. These groups remain one of the most effective (and free) tools for sourcing unskilled and semi-skilled candidates fast.
WhatsApp Outreach + Instagram Reels
For recruiters with stronger digital habits, we introduce automation tactics for WhatsApp — from scripted intro messages to auto-replies that move candidates down the funnel without needing manual follow-up. To create a full marketing experience one of the recruiters uses a full suite of tools:
- Pre-recorded videos of job offers stored in Google Drive
- Auto-posting to social media channels on a set schedule
- WhatsApp form links that filter candidates before manual review
This consistent marketing rhythm helped the recruiter reach 2,085 working hours and 20 active candidates, even during the slow season.
Country-Specific Job Portals
We don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. In Portugal, we recommend OLX PT and Net-Empregos for high-visibility job listings. In Romania, BestJobs and eJobs perform well. Some recruiters had slow starts on our platform until they shifted entirely to these regional job boards, refreshed their postings daily, and doubled their inbound applications.
Direct Support from Planners
Recruiters with active engagement benefit from real-time support by the planner team. Several recruiters praised team members like Magdalena and Sofija for their responsiveness, even on weekends.
Recruitment Process Optimization
A sound recruitment process needs to be fully tailored to strike the perfect balance between addressing candidate preferences and meeting employer conditions. To help bring out the most of the recruitment process, The success team helps recruiters:
- Define ideal candidate profiles (age, experience, documents)
- Build structured sourcing and screening pipelines
- Improve CV quality through templating or coaching
- Set up content automation (videos, job descriptions) for consistent social media presence
Real-World Results
Despite the complexity of cross-border recruitment, dozens of recruiters on the Hire Abroad platform are achieving significant success. Here are some updated and more detailed snapshots from our recent check-ins:
The Automation Expert
With over 560 candidates in his database, this built an automated system that handles everything from job offer posting to applicant tracking. Using tools like Google Drive and OpenAI-generated job descriptions, he streamlines outreach and candidate nurturing. Since implementing his system, our partner scaled from 0 to 7 people working weekly, contributing 984+ hours in just one period.
Resilient Through the Low Season
While many recruiters struggled during Q1, two recruiting partners defied the trend. They reached 1,003 hours in the low season, consistently placing both technical and unskilled workers. Their long-term goal? Transform Hire Abroad into their sole income stream, targeting €2,500/month in recruitment fees.
From Frustration to Momentum
One of our recruiter’s early months was riddled with no-shows and last-minute dropouts. Still, through persistence, bi-weekly guidance, and improved proposal techniques, they now have three people working, two more placed this month, and is steadily moving toward the 1,000h milestone.
Katrina Pazare: On Track and Expanding
With 6 workers currently placed and 955 hours accumulated, this recruiter is among the top performers from the March batch. Despite seasonal candidate availability issues in Latvia, the expert is now expanding her efforts into Portugal and Spain, experimenting with local job portals to build new sourcing streams.
These stories are proof that consistent engagement, openness to guidance, and an organized approach can make all the difference, even when challenges like delays or low candidate flow arise.
Final Takeaway from the Success Team
From the examples above, it’s evident that the most successful recruiters aren’t those with the biggest database, but those who are capable of remaining engaged, adapt quickly to the situation, and don’t hesitate to ask for help when needed.
We understand this, and aim to have their backs every time they are facing hardship in recruitment. That said, if you are a recruiter who wants to enter the international market, and wants hands-on support to reach your goals. Consider joining Hire Abroad. We are more than a platform. We are partners invested in your success.
Want to speak with a Recruiter Success Manager? Reach out and start your journey today.
