Sidebar: Scouting Talent Outside the Big City

Computerworld - To track down expatriates or other promising executives willing to take on global assignments, internal search committees and hired headhunters are scouring less-known pools of talent.
One strategy is to think beyond the biggest cities or most obvious locales in a particular country when working with local agencies to place senior IT executives, says Alan Boehme, CIO at Juniper Networks. "Some large corporations are now looking in smaller cities for talent," he says, citing Pune, India, as an example.
Bear in mind that India and East Asia aren't the only options, Boehme adds. "There is some unbelievable technical talent in the Eastern Bloc," he says.
Managerial talent abounds in places such as Australia, suggests Shawn Banerji, executive director at executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates. "Australians tend to crop up in different parts of the world. They are a pretty adventurous group that is fairly open-minded and global in their views."
Other countries likely to yield strong IT managers capable of global assignments include Israel and Singapore, according to Mark Minevich, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Enamics Inc.
Academia is another place to look for executive-level IT talent, says Umesh Ramakrishnan, vice chairman at executive search firm Christian & Timbers.
"These candidates tend to have cultural and geographical strengths, though they do lack industry experience. Still, that can be less risky in a technical setting, especially if this person is running a purely technical shop or research and development staff," Ramakrishnan says.
Also, consider exploring Washington's government technology industry or the IT talent pool around the United Nations in New York as additional options, advises Banerji.