Hiring in South Africa: Best Practices for Finding and Vetting Talent
Hiring in South Africa gives you access to a highly skilled, English-speaking talent pool at a fraction of UK and US costs. With a 35% unemployment rate, job postings can attract hundreds, sometimes thousands, of applicants. Without a clear process, it is easy to drown in CVs and miss the best people.
Here is how we manage all our hiring for clients, designed to identify the top 0.1% of South African candidates quickly and effectively.
Job Post on LinkedIn
We begin with a carefully written job post that reflects both the role and working model. Remote positions typically receive three to five times as many applications as in-office roles. To filter for the right people from the start, we make expectations clear, outline the experience required, and specify working hours aligned with UK or US time zones.
CV Review
From the large pool of applicants, we focus on candidates who show signs of long-term fit. Those with steady career progression, minimal job-hopping, and relevant experience stand out. This initial review reduces the number of applications to around 10–15% of the original list, allowing us to focus only on the strongest profiles.
Short Assessment
We then test skills in a practical way, replicating real work as closely as possible. We assess two key areas:
Written English: Many applicants can speak fluently, but fewer can write clearly and professionally for international clients.
Problem-solving ability: We look for logical thinking and accuracy under realistic conditions.
Only candidates who excel in both areas move forward.
Interview
Our structured interviews dig deeper into a candidate’s expertise and fit for the role. We look for evidence that they have succeeded in similar positions and can adapt quickly to high-growth environments. Communication skills are particularly important for international clients, and we ensure candidates can confidently represent your business.
Reference Checks
Before presenting candidates to clients, we speak to at least two previous managers. This helps validate their past performance, reliability, and professionalism. A key question we always ask is whether the manager would rehire them, which is a strong indicator of long-term value.
Sharing with Clients
Only after all these steps do we present a shortlist of fully vetted candidates. By this stage, every individual has been screened, tested, interviewed, and reference-checked, saving you the time and risk of sifting through hundreds of CVs.
Summary Table (Hiring Process Overview)
Why Work with Modern Day Talent
This hiring process is just one part of our wider “people” solution. We do not just recruit talent. We act as your employer of record in South Africa, managing HR, payroll, and compliance. We also help build structured offshore teams designed for long-term success.
We do this every day for some of the world’s fastest-growing companies, helping them hire the top 0.1% of South African talent without the stress of handling recruitment alone.
