Expat Recruitment — Hire Top Expat Talent Across 36+ Countries
Hire expatriate professionals and skilled staff, sourced from India and worldwide, with visa and relocation managed through arrival. We place engineers, managers, technicians, and specialists into roles across Africa, the Gulf, the Caribbean, Asia, and Europe. Tell us the role, the destination country, and your visa position, and we return a shortlist.
16+ Years Of Experience
550,000+ Placements Delivered
36+ Countries Served
350+ Expert Teams
50+ Top Level Positions
What Is Expat Search Recruitment?
Expat search recruitment is the placement of professionals into roles outside their home country, where the employer sponsors the move. It differs from domestic recruitment in one decisive way: finding the candidate is rarely the hard part.
The hard part is everything after acceptance. Work permit eligibility for that nationality in that destination. Qualification recognition and attestation. Medical clearance. Family relocation. Realistic processing time. Any of these can end a placement weeks after the offer was signed, and the candidate is usually gone by then.
Most expatriate hiring follows established corridors rather than being genuinely global. India to the Gulf. India to East and West Africa. India to the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. The Philippines and Sri Lanka into the Gulf. Those corridors have known processing times, known costs, and known failure points.
Our depth is in the India-outbound corridors, where we recruit through our own offices rather than through sub-agents.
We place permanent employees only. Our fees are paid by the employer. Candidates are never charged.
For broader international hiring, see our overseas recruitment practice.
How We Approach Expatriate Hiring
Most agencies sell you a shortlist and disappear at the offer. We check the visa route before sourcing, because a brilliant candidate who cannot legally start for nine months is not a candidate. Every shortlist we send states the destination work permit position for that nationality, alongside a realistic date the person could actually begin. That is usually the information that decides the hire.
Expat Search Recruitment Costs and Timelines
What It Costs:
Our fee is a percentage of the hire’s first-year salary, agreed before the search begins and payable when they join. Expatriate placements sit at the higher end of our range because the engagement continues through visa processing and mobilisation rather than ending at offer. The employer pays. Candidates are never charged a fee by us at any stage.
How Long It Takes:
Shortlist in 10 to 15 working days regardless of destination. From offer to arrival varies entirely by corridor: 4 to 8 weeks for straightforward routes, 8 to 16 weeks for most Gulf destinations, and longer where qualification attestation or licensing is required.
What Our Expat Search Service Includes
Visa Route Checked Before We Source
We confirm work permit eligibility for the nationalities you can realistically hire, in your destination country, before a single candidate is approached.
India-Outbound Recruitment Through Our Own Offices
Our strongest corridor. We recruit directly in India through our own teams, including our Chennai office, rather than through sub-agents whose practices we cannot see.
Work Permit Status on Every Shortlisted Candidate
Each candidate arrives with their eligibility and realistic start date stated, so you are not choosing between a four-week start and a four-month start without knowing which is which.
Attestation and Qualification Recognition
For roles where degrees or trade certificates must be attested or recognised in the destination country, we identify that requirement at the shortlist stage rather than after the offer.
Mobilisation and Arrival Support
We coordinate documentation, travel and arrival with your team, and stay engaged until the candidate is on site.
Permanent Placements Only
Every hire joins your payroll as a permanent employee. We do not supply contract labour, temporary staff or project-duration workers.
Our Expat Search Process
Step 1: Role and Corridor Scoping Call (45 minutes, within 2 working days)
We establish the role, the destination country, the salary package including any expatriate allowances, and which nationalities you can realistically sponsor there. That last answer defines your candidate pool before anything else.
Step 2: Corridor and Supply Assessment (3 to 5 working days)
We map which source markets can supply the role at your package, and what the visa route costs in weeks for each. Where a corridor is closed or slow, you hear it in week one.
Step 3: Sourcing and Screening (10 to 15 working days to shortlist)
Direct sourcing in the relevant markets, screening against role requirements, qualification and document verification, and reference checks. Three to five candidates, each with work permit status and realistic start date stated.
Step 4: Interviews and Selection (client-led, typically 1 to 2 weeks)
Video interviews coordinated across time zones, with candidate communication managed throughout in the candidate’s working language.
Step 5: Offer, Visa and Mobilisation (4 to 16 weeks depending on corridor)
We manage the offer and coordinate visa processing, attestation, medical clearance and travel. This phase is where most expatriate placements fail, and it is where the fee is actually earned.
Step 6: Arrival, Settling and Guarantee Period (first 90 days)
An expatriate hire is not complete on arrival. Early attrition in expatriate roles is usually about settling rather than capability. We check in with you and the candidate at 30, 60, and 90 days, and if the placement does not hold within the guarantee period, we re-run the search at no additional fee.
Industries We Serve
Need to Hire Expat Talent?
Tell us the role, location, and experience required. We’ll identify qualified international candidates and build a focused shortlist.
Expatriate Corridors and Destinations We Recruit For
India to the Gulf
Our highest-volume corridor. Engineering, construction, healthcare, hospitality and technical roles into the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. See our Middle East practice.
India to East and West Africa
A long-established route for engineering, manufacturing, agriculture and management roles across Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and Mozambique.
India to the Caribbean and Latin America
Including Guyana’s energy sector, where demand has grown sharply and the candidate pool is almost entirely imported.
India to Southeast Asia
Technical and management roles into Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.
India to Europe
Skilled trades and technical roles where work visa routes exist, including Cyprus, Poland, Romania and Portugal.
Engineering and Construction
The largest expatriate category worldwide. Site management, QA and QC, planning and technical supervision.
Healthcare and Clinical
Where licensing and credential recognition, not sourcing, determine the timeline.
Hospitality and Facilities
Hotel, resort and facilities management, one of the most mobile professional categories.
Manufacturing and Industrial Operations
Plant management, production and maintenance leadership into developing industrial markets.
Education
Teaching and school leadership roles, handled by our dedicated expat teaching recruitment practice.
Who We Recruit Expatriates For
You Hold Visa Approvals and Need Candidates Against Them
Approvals expire. Recruiting against a live allocation with a deadline is a different exercise from open hiring.
Your Last Expatriate Hire Fell Apart at the Visa Stage
You found the person, made the offer, and lost them to a process nobody was managing.
You Are Operating Somewhere With No Local Talent Pool
Frontier energy, mining and infrastructure markets where the skills simply are not domestically available at any price.
You Need Someone Who Will Actually Stay
Expatriate attrition in the first year is high and expensive. Screening for the move, not just the job, is what reduces it.
You Are Comparing Corridors and Need Honest Numbers
Which nationality, from which country, at what cost, arriving when. Most agencies will not give you that comparison because it sometimes argues against the search.
Your Customers Audit How Your Workforce Was Recruited
Employer-paid, documented fee structures matter when international buyers review labour practices in your operations.
The Alliance Advantage in Expat Search
We Recruit in India Through Our Own Offices:
Not through sub-agents. For the India-outbound corridors that is the difference between a chain you can audit and one you cannot.
Work Permit Status on Every Shortlist:
The single most useful piece of information on an expatriate shortlist, and the one almost nobody includes.
Employer-Paid Fees, Stated in Writing:
No candidate is charged by us at any stage, and the structure is agreed before the search begins.
16+ Years and 15,000+ Placements Across 36+ Countries:
Cross-border placement is the whole business rather than a specialism bolted onto domestic recruitment.
Corridor Knowledge, Not Just Candidate Databases:
We know which routes are currently open, which are slow, and which have closed. That changes quarterly, and it is not searchable.
We Say When a Corridor Will Not Work:
Some destination and nationality combinations cannot be made to work within your timeline. You hear that in week one.
Why Choose Alliance for Expat Search Recruitment
Expatriate recruitment fails in a predictable place, and it is never the shortlist. It fails between offer and arrival, when a work permit is refused for that nationality, a degree cannot be attested in time, a medical comes back requiring a retest, or a family relocation falls through. By the time any of those surface, the candidate has usually taken something else.
Everything we do on an expatriate search is organised around that phase. We check the visa route before sourcing rather than after. Every shortlist states a realistic arrival date, not a notice period. And the engagement runs through mobilisation to arrival rather than ending when the contract is signed. That is slower to start, and it is the only version of this service that reliably produces someone on site.
Our Client Reviews
We needed to relocate experienced engineering professionals for a project in the Middle East and did not have the international sourcing reach internally. Alliance understood the technical requirements, screened candidates for relocation readiness and kept the process moving through the documentation stage. It made planning the project workforce much easier for us.
Our expansion required a senior executive who was willing to relocate and had experience working across international markets. Alliance approached candidates who were not actively looking and gave us a focused shortlist. They also kept us informed about availability, expectations and relocation requirements throughout the search.
We had struggled to find healthcare professionals willing to take an overseas assignment. Alliance helped us access candidates from outside our usual markets and screened for both qualifications and international mobility. The process was well coordinated, and our internal HR team had much less follow-up to manage.
Awards
Meet Our Leadership Team
Molly Anderson
Franchise Lead | Recruitment Franchise
Alex George
General Manager | RPO & Enterprise Recruitment
Nikki Miller
Head of Recruitment | Recruitment & Staffing
Frequently Asked Questions
Expat search recruitment is the placement of professionals into roles outside their home country, with the employer sponsoring the move. It involves work permit eligibility, qualification recognition, medical clearance and relocation alongside the recruitment itself.
Check the visa route before you start sourcing, and shortlist on realistic arrival date rather than notice period. Most delay comes from discovering a permit, attestation or medical requirement after the offer rather than before the search.
No. Our fees are paid by the employer and agreed in writing before the search begins. No candidate is charged at any stage.
India is our strongest source market and we recruit there through our own offices. We also recruit from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and across Africa depending on the destination and the visa route available.
The Gulf, East and West Africa, the Caribbean including Guyana, Southeast Asia, and parts of Europe where skilled work visa routes exist.
Shortlist in 10 to 15 working days. From offer to arrival ranges from 4 to 8 weeks on straightforward routes to 8 to 16 weeks for most Gulf destinations, and longer where qualification attestation or professional licensing is required.
A percentage of the hire’s first-year salary, agreed before the search and payable when they join. Expatriate placements sit at the higher end because the engagement continues through visa processing and mobilisation.
We confirm eligibility before sourcing, state each candidate’s permit position on the shortlist, and coordinate processing with your team through to arrival. We do not provide legal or immigration advice.
For India, our strongest corridor, we recruit through our own offices. This matters because fees charged by unseen sub-agents are the most common source of labour practice problems in expatriate recruitment.
No. We place permanent employees only. We do not supply contract labour, temporary staff or project-duration workers.
If a permanent placement leaves within the agreed guarantee period, we re-run the search at no additional fee. We also check in at 30, 60 and 90 days, because early expatriate attrition is usually about settling rather than capability.
-
Write to us -
Book a meeting -
Call now
Close