Modern Australia was built on immigrants.

They came in clearly defined waves.

The British and Irish. The Southern Europeans. The Asians.

Many other countries are the same, and most pay homage to those immigrants now.

I am an immigrant myself, arriving in Australia two weeks before my 21st Birthday.

I am the son of an immigrant too.

When you are an immigrant, an outsider, you think and behave differently. This I know from personal experience. It’s a tiny bit like the first week at a new school. Everyone else is chilled, knows the ropes, very familiar, complacent even.

You are alert, watchful, looking to learn, needing to be brave.

Now, more than ever before, recruiters need to think like immigrants.

Strange statement? At first, maybe. But read my explanation in the context of a rapidly changing Covid and post-Covid recruiting landscape.

We know a great deal has changed and more changes are coming. But are we adapting?

What immigrants have and do, we need to have and do right now.

Immigrants are massive optimists. By definition. They have moved somewhere new because they perceive a better life. They want to be here. They need to succeed. It gives them an edge. Are you sharp and edgy?

Immigrants are brave. They need to be. Every step, every corner rounded, is a new experience. They need to experiment. To ask a lot. Be prepared to fail a few times. To bounce back. They act as if they have no safety net because typically, they don’t. Do you have the courage to try new tactics? Get out of your comfort zone? Reinvent?

Immigrants learn new skills. They have to. Language maybe. Driving on the ‘other’ side of the road. Food. Local traditions. Sports. Are you learning new skills? Smashing your paradigms? Pivoting in your approach?

Immigrants are opportunists. They typically don’t have a lot, so they are alert to a ‘chance’. They see a gap, they take it. They don’t have the luxury of waiting for something to ‘turn up’. They seek it out. Immigrants do not have a sense of entitlement that locals might. Are you a little complacent? Lacking innovation and creativity?

Immigrants embrace new ideas. They still hold on to what is dear to them from the past, but they absorb the new. They search for new ways in most cases. Their paradigms are not set in concrete. They don’t limit themselves, because they don’t assume limits on what is achievable. Are you making assumptions? Closed to change?

Immigrants are humble. They will do any job that sets them on their way. ( Me? Cleaning toilets at a caravan park in Coolangatta, barman at the Arkaba Hotel in Adelaide, storeman/packer at RM Williams). They know that they don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t limit what they are prepared to do for success. You? A little ‘I have been doing this for 10 years’ hubris?

Immigrants work harder to get ahead. They have to. They are ‘on their own’. No ‘old-boys’ network. Make or break. Persistence is in the DNA. I love the new flexibility, WFH and work-life balance. I do. But trust me, hard work still pays off. Are you prepared to do the extra needed to be great at this?

All these immigrant traits are also those of the modern recruiter. Or should be.

In a sense, all recruiters are immigrants because we have just arrived in this ‘new world of recruitment’, where everything is changing. We need to embrace that world, using the skills we learned in the ‘old country’ if they still apply, but wide open to change, hard work and fresh thinking.

20 years ago, I had a client say to me,

“Greg I only hire people who have at least one grandparent who cannot speak English”.

A baffling remark at first, and certainly politically incorrect and probably illegal too. But what he was alluding to is that he liked to hire sons and daughters of immigrants because he valued the way they thought, the work ethic they displayed, and the values they brought.

Hardly scientific or unbiased recruitment methodology, but I admit I have never forgotten that comment, and I dare say it has influenced my hiring decisions since.

Do not discriminate based on what language family members speak, obviously, but hire people who think like an immigrant.

And make sure you do yourself too.

* Please don’t post any comments about ‘lazy immigrants’ you have known, your views on the ‘refugee crisis’, Brexit, closed borders, or anything else that argues the pros or cons of immigration. This is not a political blog. It’s just a thought-starter, via a metaphor, planting an idea about the need for sharpness and fresh thinking.

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