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Welcome to the
Expatriate Assessment and Selection page. Here you will find
information about our consulting services for wisely recruiting,
assessing, and selecting employees for international assignments. To
view information about our consultants and trainers, enter
here. To receive a
free additional information about our expatriate assessment and selection
services, click on the free additional information button at the bottom of the
description.
"Wisely Selecting Expatriates" --
Consulting Support for Recruiting, Assessing, and Selecting Overseas
Assignees
Technical and business competence must be considered
whenever a firm is selecting employees for
an overseas assignment. And, because such assignments bring
expatriates into sustained daily contact
with a wide range of cultural, social, and business-style
differences, psychological and situational
factors need to be taken into account as well.
Over 25 years of research has helped to identify the
psychological traits that enhance the likelihood of success on an
assignment in an unfamiliar culture. The outcome of all this effort
includes several lengthy lists of desirable personality traits, plus
two or three commercially available assessment instruments using
long pencil-and-paper formats.
In the view of GlobalWorkshop.com’s practice
leaders, this research effort has directed attention too strongly
towards purely psychological dimensions, at the expense of attention
to people's situational readiness. "Situational readiness"
refers to factors external to the personality of the expat
candidate. These are the factors that come to mind in response to
this question, "Is this period of my life a good one in which
to leave home and relocate myself and my family to another
country?"
The practice leaders have developed ten situational
questions that it uses with expat candidates. Answering one or
more of these questions in a way that forewarns of difficulties need
not necessarily disqualify an individual or family from selection.
But it does signal that a risk factor is present that needs to be
resolved either by corrective action now. . .or by waiting for a
better time to pack up and relocate.
GlobalWorkshop’s practice leaders also pay
attention to the psychological dimensions, although in a way that
they regard as appropriately balanced. They prefer to use the Cross-Cultural
Adaptability Inventory, or CCAI, a self-scoring instrument that
gives feedback to an individual about his or her potential for
effectiveness in an unfamiliar culture.
The CCAI enables
individuals to learn about the personal qualities and skills that
research has associated with satisfaction and success abroad. Also,
the CCAI enables individuals to plan to upgrade a quality or skill
that is in short supply. The CCAI's advantages are that it: (1) is
very economical to use, (2) includes a 360° feedback option, (3) is
self-scored rather than machine-scored, and (4) reduces to four the
number of psychological dimensions under consideration. (Other
commercially available instruments, at hugely greater expense,
assess a dozen or more dimensions, which many people find
overwhelming.)
Program
Title: "Wisely
Selecting Expatriates"
Objectives:
GlobalWorkshop.com’s objectives with respect to
expat recruitment, assessment, and selection are. . .
- to assist its client firm in recruiting expat
candidates using realistic information
- to emphasize the role of the family to
knowledgeably self-select (or to self-decline or -postpone)
- to provide balanced attention to situational
factors and to psychological factors
- to pay at least as much attention to spouse and
children as to the potential assignee
- to guide firm and family through a process that
ideally includes four steps -- see "Agenda" below.
Duration:
The duration of this consulting service depends
on the number of candidates and families to be recruited and
assessed, and on the number of assessment approaches employed (four
are recommended).
Consultant’s
Qualifications:
- familiarity with research findings regarding
individual and family suitability for overseas assignment
- personal experience as an overseas assignee or
other type of long-term employed sojourner abroad
- commitment to assisting families (and
individuals) to make wise personal decisions about expatriation
Agenda:
Recruitment activities, which may take a variety
of forms including large-group events, may precede the following
assessment procedure.
A complete expat-candidate assessment procedure
involves four steps:
- Collection of basic background data on each
candidate individual and family -- data is supplied largely by the
family itself; some data about the employee may come from firm’s
HR office
- Completion of the Cross-Cultural Assessment
Inventory (CCAI) by each family member age 15 or above, followed
by self-assessments and development of individual plans for
improving effectiveness
- Evaluation of 360°
feedback -- this is largely completed using the CCAI’s 360°
feedback option, but in selected cases may also include brief
interviews with the candidate’s work colleagues
- Face-to-face interview by GlobalWorkshop
consultant with family members, individually and/or separately,
followed by consultation with family to help guide members to their
own wise decision
To request Free Additional Information Enter Here
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