This presupposes that a hiring manager can perfectly judge the quality of candidates. There are a ton of great engineers in, say Romania. But unless you know how to find and discriminate, you will be stuck with the average Romanian engineer.
As anyone who's done serious hiring can tell you, judging candidates is damn tough. There's only a loose correlation between how a candidate looks on paper and how he performs. Now imagine translating this process to a completely foreign culture halfway across the world. Do you know which universities in Romania are good? Do you know who the most prestigious employers and positions in Romania are? Do you have a network of Romanians to recommend new hires?
In fact, even if you try, most likely you'll be stuck with below average engineers. Not only will the top ones get scooped up by those with better local knowledge, but the lack of knowledge goes both ways. Top engineers aren't going to join some fly-by-night employer with no local brand, track record in that country, and no career track to senior positions.
The only way I've seen a company actually succeed at this is by being willing to fully embrace the country. It's not just enough to hire off-the-shelf Romanian engineers, the company has to actually become "Romanian". Are companies willing to hire senior management from Romania? Are Romanian employees "first class citizens" with equivalent work to their American counterparts? Is the company raising money from Romanian VCs? Are they pushing Romania as a primary markets for their product? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then it's highly unlikely that you'll succeed in recruiting, interviewing, hiring and retaining top talent in that local market.
As anyone who's done serious hiring can tell you, judging candidates is damn tough. There's only a loose correlation between how a candidate looks on paper and how he performs. Now imagine translating this process to a completely foreign culture halfway across the world. Do you know which universities in Romania are good? Do you know who the most prestigious employers and positions in Romania are? Do you have a network of Romanians to recommend new hires?
In fact, even if you try, most likely you'll be stuck with below average engineers. Not only will the top ones get scooped up by those with better local knowledge, but the lack of knowledge goes both ways. Top engineers aren't going to join some fly-by-night employer with no local brand, track record in that country, and no career track to senior positions.
The only way I've seen a company actually succeed at this is by being willing to fully embrace the country. It's not just enough to hire off-the-shelf Romanian engineers, the company has to actually become "Romanian". Are companies willing to hire senior management from Romania? Are Romanian employees "first class citizens" with equivalent work to their American counterparts? Is the company raising money from Romanian VCs? Are they pushing Romania as a primary markets for their product? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then it's highly unlikely that you'll succeed in recruiting, interviewing, hiring and retaining top talent in that local market.