Recruiting in Nepal: what Portuguese companies should know

Nepal is Indica7's most established recruitment corridor, and there is a practical reason for that: it is a country with labour emigration organised for decades, with licensed agencies, familiar consular processes and workers used to working abroad. None of this is a detail. It is the difference between a process that runs and a process that stalls on the first badly prepared application.

The first question companies ask is always about skills, and the honest answer is that you cannot know them from a distance. That is why we run practical tests in the home country, before any travel. A cook cooks, a welder welds. The company sees the candidate by video and decides with real information, instead of deciding on a CV nobody can verify seven thousand kilometres away.

The second question is language, and it is worth being clear: most arrive with functional English and no Portuguese. In a warehouse, on a building site or in a kitchen, that sorts itself out in weeks with a team that helps. In customer facing roles it does not, and in those cases we say no. Placing someone in a role where they cannot work loses the worker and the client's trust at the same time.

The part nobody anticipates is the arrival. Someone who lands in Lisbon without knowing where they will sleep, how to open a bank account or how to get to work is someone at risk of giving up before the first month is out, however good they are at the job. It is the stage where the placement is won or lost, and that is why the reception, the accommodation when it is needed and the supervised first day are part of the service instead of an extra.

On the legal process there is little to add that is not already true for any country outside the European Union: contract first, work visa applied for at the consulate, registration with AIMA and Social Security after arrival. What Nepal has in particular is the sheer number of processes that have already run through there, and that counts when something does not go to plan.

One final note, because it is the question companies ask last and should ask first: recruiting well abroad also means recruiting cleanly. Paperwork in order, the same conditions as any other worker, and no charge to the candidate for the job. An agency licensed by the IEFP answers for this, and it is what separates this process from the stories you sometimes read.