Local hiring means passing the torch, not extinction of expat jobs

The expat era isn’t dead, it’s just different. “When I started seven years ago, 90 percent of my time was spent finding expats to fill long-term positions on projects and proposals,” said Leland Howard, a senior recruiter for Abt Associates. “Now almost all of my recruiting is local or regional.” In fact, things are changing more quickly than recruiters expected, he explained, citing the roll-out of USAID Forward — which placed an emphasis on increased direct investment in partner governments and local organizations — as one of the major catalysts three years ago. “When USAID Forward came out, I thought, ‘this is a nice idea, [but] it’s not going to get off the ground,’ but it has,” Howard said. “Frankly, I think we’ve all been caught a little flat-footed.” The difficulty and competitiveness of breaking into development is nothing new, but the increasing focus on hiring local staff is also changing hiring patterns: Local professionals are increasingly named project manager or chief of party in an effort by implementing organizations to prove to their donors that they are cost-effective and building local capacity. Top donors like the European Commission, AusAID, DfiD and USAID are increasingly looking for locals in many key project positions. Gone are the days of five or more expats on a project; now, there’s often just one. An increased focus on local capacity and ownership will, in theory, create more sustainable development initiatives, although development professionals young and old need to start thinking about the changing roles this strategy is creating for them, recruiters told Devex. Adapt to new opportunities Development job seekers have always faced a constantly changing industry, and those who find success are adaptable and perhaps creative in the way they enter the field. But localization is a giant in terms of how it’s changing the job market — now trending toward more home office than field positions, roles requiring rare specialties, management-level jobs, capacity building roles and positions in conflict areas. The idea of the long-term overseas post is now less likely than it used to be, Howard said. Instead, a development professional can expect to work at the home office and travel several times a year. “If you really want to spend a lot of time in the field, you really have to drill down and be a very specific subject matter expert. Think specialist in dry fruit value chains,” Howard said. The idea to become an expert and specialize in a certain unique aspect of development is no different than becoming a nurse because New Zealand is currently short on professionals in that field, said Adam Childs, a New Zealand-based risk analyst who spent 11 years as a field coordinator for MSF. The need for expats — whatever their nationality — will more and more be driven by market supply and demand efficiencies, Childs said. It won’t be their “expat” nature that will be the critical factor, just knowledge and expertise. For example, large parts of Africa are building sophisticated phone and Internet systems, but there might not be enough software designers or capable mobile signal tower builders in the immediate area. “It’s the same thing if you need to build a mobile phone tower in Arkansas and no one knows how to weld steel to create the tower there,” explained Childs. “So you bring someone in from Chicago. It’s a market driven response.” Though development market needs are always changing, Howard cited agricultural development programs as a strong sector for expats, as well as basic health services programs: “HIV/AIDS work, as much as we’d all love to see it disappear, will still be here.” The same goes for democracy, governance and legislation. “If you’re trying to implement legislative strengthening, it’s in environments that are volatile or dysfunctional, and it might be hard to identify a local who is able to step back and navigate the politics of it all,” he said. Over the next 10 years, monitoring and evaluation will remain a huge role for expats, Erskine added and noted that organizations “recognize the importance and need for it, but they don’t know how to use survey tools or analyze data.” The new development ladder Localization leaves senior-level professionals at an advantage over junior and mid-management, as most organizations continue to look for an experienced expat leader to begin a project before handing it over to local ownership. From a proposal perspective, there will continue to be positions for those with 20-25 years of experience for chief of party roles. In fact, there is still an advantage to having a foreign chief of party — someone who is not from the community and can help solve tribal or cultural clashes as a neutral third party, shared Amanda Schwartz, senior recruiter for emerging markets for Deloitte. Maya Salomon, senior international recruiter for the Asia Foundation, said they don’t have any fewer high-level field job postings for expats right now, “but that’s not to say that these things aren’t changing.” Anyone in between — at mid-management level — might be missing out on once-available opportunities because they’re now geared toward a local applicant. But for those staff, according to Inga Feldi, a recruiter for DAI in Africa, there are opportunities sprouting up as more organizations outside of the sector invest in development. Young people with fresh ideas, tech-savvy mentalities and business or finance backgrounds can find positions with companies like Aecom, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Land O’Lakes and Exxon, which all need people to head up their corporate social responsibility initiatives. Applications always pour in for the rare junior postings on the ground, said Kathryn Erskine, senior recruiter for Creative Associates. “They want to be in the field making a difference,” Erskine said of young development job seekers. “But unless it’s somewhere like Afghanistan, we are only hiring senior-level staff to go as expats in the field.” But young people need not despair as to how they’ll get their overseas experience, noted Pierre Seguin, a Canadian technical advisor for IMF now based in Fiji. He recommended those who wish to work overseas get involved with the consulting division for large firms, such as Cowater International or CRC Sogema in Canada. When these companies win a big project, they send members of the team abroad to work on it, even on a short-term basis. Work yourself out of a job Overall, the role expats are playing in projects is changing, explained Erskine of Creative Associates. No matter the sector, the focus is increasingly on behind-the-scenes support. The relationship between international and local staff is changing from teacher/student to mentor/mentee, according to Seguin. The expat is a hands-on expert to support and transfer knowledge, but one who will gradually move away to allow the mentee to flourish on his or her own. And while it might mean being a wallflower — “as much as you can be in the background, the better,” said Sue Dorsey, CFO of Water for People — these are still important expat roles. For NGOs, it means setting up projects that have local ownership, taking the time to understand local resources, and stepping back and de-branding yourself locally, she noted. For expats, it also means taking a backseat and focusing on skill transfer and instruction, with the realization that the goal is to eventually hand the project reins over to locals working on the project. “Think more about skills training and facilitation — training those who may be doing direct service and facilitating that service rather than performing it yourself,” said Dorsey. People will always be drawn to new and exciting markets, and this partnership and sharing of ideas between expats and locals will never be obsolete — it’s crucial to development. “I don’t think expats are going away anytime soon, I think the value of collaboration across borders can inspire innovation.” Please leave a comment below, tweet @devexcareers or join the Devex LinkedIn group for recruiters.