Why US companies are hiring IT talent in nearshore locations: the how-to

How to find the best nearshore IT talent

So, you’ve made the decision to seek out nearshore tech talent to grow your business, but you’re not sure how to go about it.

You’re not alone, it’s easy to rush the process and make a quick hire but difficult to find the right talent for the job. Unless you know what the best practices are for finding top nearshore engineering talent.

Conduct In-Person Interviews

One of the best things you can do to ensure success when hiring nearshore talent is to have someone from your company fly out to the country in question to conduct face-to-face meetings with the prospects.

Employees in senior positions such as project managers will need to interact with the nearshore team on a regular basis, so why not have them be directly involved in the hiring process to ensure a smooth transition?

Understand the Talent’s Motivations

It can be a good idea to scope out the talent pool in the nearshore destination and gather information about what activities they enjoy and what their ambitions are.

The younger prospects might be more motivated by the potential for travel, so you could push this aspect of the job if applicable. Older prospects on the other hand might be more interested in what the health benefits of the role are, so that could be another angle to take.

Work with a Nearshore Partner

It’s no secret that the nearshore recruitment process can be challenging.

Even when there isn’t much distance between where you’re based and where the potential prospects are, there’s a lot of logistics to consider and this can incur a lot of unnecessary costs.

The hiring process can also break down at any stage if you don’t thoroughly vet the prospects and have a funnel in place.

So why not outsource your worries to a nearshore partner who will have much more experience finding and onboarding nearshore tech talent?

Going beyond: expanding to other LATAM countries

Many LATAM countries are rapidly growing in popularity as nearshore destinations, it isn’t just Mexico.

One of the main reasons for this isn’t due to a rise in tech talent or cheap labor costs but the negligible time difference.

Just like with Canada, LATAM countries offer an enticing prospect which is a similar time zone to the US. If you want all of your teams to work together in perfect harmony then you need to know that they can communicate with each other at all times.

There’s also the cultural similarity, which we discussed earlier, that makes LATAM countries a great choice for nearshore outsourcing. You’ll find more similarities than differences in this regard, which ensures there aren’t unexpected hiccups down the line.

Perhaps what’s most encouraging though is how venture capital funding has flooded Latin America in the past few years, hitting an all-time peak back in 2019, pre-COVID. This influx of investment goes to show that the tech market in the region is booming, and that before long it should become a hotspot for some of the best tech talent.

The reasons for this are hard to pinpoint, but it could be in part due to the phenomena in which there’s a max exodus of highly skilled tech workers from a large company. The most notable example of this is PayPal, which saw many of its employees go on to create some of the biggest tech companies such as Yelp, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

In Latin America, there are similar examples of this happening, with Groupon Latin America and Linio being prime examples. The ‘Groupon Mafia’ as it’s now known in some corners, led to the development of several other notable companies.

The best time to expand your business through a nearshore partner

As they often say, ‘there’s no time like the present’.

As you’ll now know, the tech talent shortage is here to stay, so there’s no use in holding onto the hope that there’ll be a change in that situation any time soon.

So rather than waiting for something to change, now is as good a time as any to be proactive and seek out the top tech talent you need from nearshore destinations.

If you’re unsure how to navigate the nearshore tech talent opportunities, then establishing a working relationship with a nearshore partner could be your best move. All it takes is a list of the number of employees you’re looking to hire, as well as other basic information, and the rest will be out of your hands.

Working with a nearshore partner can change the ‘one day’ to today, and bring a wealth of top IT talent to your company in no time. 

You could save money without sacrificing on quality, and set yourself up for rapid international expansion without most of the typical struggles associated with it. Tap into the global talent pool without jumping through hoops and setting up elaborate funnels which can end up being time and resource sinks.