Recruiting. Sourcing, screening, managing the process, closing candidates, and calibrating with hiring managers. Success is measured in filled roles and quality of hire.
People operations. Onboarding, employment documentation, performance frameworks, policy, engagement, and the administrative backbone of employment. Success is measured in retention and in things not going wrong.
Recruiting is urgent and visible. People operations is important and invisible. Combined in one role, the urgent wins every week.
Hiring & Search
Hiring a technical recruiter or people operations lead in the Philippines
In short
Recruiting fills roles. People operations builds the systems that support employees once they are hired. They are different skill sets and hiring 1 person for both usually means the urgent work of recruiting crowds out everything else. The Philippine market supplies both well.
Technology companies tend to hire their first people person when hiring volume becomes painful, then ask that person to also own onboarding, performance, policy and culture. It is a reasonable instinct and it produces a recruiter who never recruits or an operations person who never gets to the operations.
The 2 jobs
What the Philippine market supplies
Both, at depth.
Well represented for recruiting: technical sourcing, agency and in house recruitment experience, applicant tracking system administration, and experience recruiting for international companies across time zones.
Well represented for people operations: employee relations, statutory compliance including SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG administration, payroll coordination, performance management, and policy work.
Local knowledge is a specific advantage here. A Philippine people operations hire understands the statutory landscape, the regularisation rules and the local norms in a way a foreign employer will not, which reduces compliance risk materially.
Thinner: senior talent leadership designing hiring strategy at scale, and specialised compensation and benefits design.
Well represented for recruiting: technical sourcing, agency and in house recruitment experience, applicant tracking system administration, and experience recruiting for international companies across time zones.
Well represented for people operations: employee relations, statutory compliance including SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG administration, payroll coordination, performance management, and policy work.
Local knowledge is a specific advantage here. A Philippine people operations hire understands the statutory landscape, the regularisation rules and the local norms in a way a foreign employer will not, which reduces compliance risk materially.
Thinner: senior talent leadership designing hiring strategy at scale, and specialised compensation and benefits design.
How to interview a recruiter
Ask them to source for one of your open roles live. Give them the brief and 20 minutes. What they ask you first matters more than what they find.
Ask about a role they failed to fill. The diagnosis reveals whether they understand market reality or blame candidates.
Ask how they push back on a hiring manager. Recruiters who only take orders produce long searches for impossible briefs.
Ask what they say to a candidate who has a competing offer. Closing is a distinct skill and is where searches are won or lost.
Ask about a role they failed to fill. The diagnosis reveals whether they understand market reality or blame candidates.
Ask how they push back on a hiring manager. Recruiters who only take orders produce long searches for impossible briefs.
Ask what they say to a candidate who has a competing offer. Closing is a distinct skill and is where searches are won or lost.
How to interview a people operations hire
Ask about a difficult employee situation they handled and what the outcome was. Look for process and documentation, not just empathy.
Ask what they would check first in an employment contract they inherited. A strong local candidate will go to probationary standards, regularisation and statutory benefits.
Ask what policy they would write first for a 15 person company. Answers that involve 40 pages of policy are a warning.
Ask what they would check first in an employment contract they inherited. A strong local candidate will go to probationary standards, regularisation and statutory benefits.
Ask what policy they would write first for a 15 person company. Answers that involve 40 pages of policy are a warning.
Which one to hire first
If you are hiring more than 2 roles at once and it is consuming founder time, hire recruiting.
If you already have a team of 10 or more and things are going wrong after people join, hire people operations.
If both are true, be honest about which is the priority for the first 6 months and say so in the brief. A candidate who accepts a role knowing the split is more likely to stay than one who discovers it.
If you already have a team of 10 or more and things are going wrong after people join, hire people operations.
If both are true, be honest about which is the priority for the first 6 months and say so in the brief. A candidate who accepts a role knowing the split is more likely to stay than one who discovers it.
Hiring in the Philippines?
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