The Global Talent Illusion: How Western Recruitment Is Undermining Its Own Future

In recent years, policymakers, corporate executives, decision makers, and tech giants across the Western world have embraced what they proudly call the “global talent” and “change” agenda. These phrases are marketed as modern, progressive strategies, promising innovation, diversity, and transformation. Yet behind the polished language lies a far more troubling reality: a recruitment model that often prioritises cost-cutting over competence, and profit over long-term societal wellbeing.

Under the guise of seeking global talent, many organisations have increasingly imported low-cost labour from abroad, driven primarily by the desire to pay extremely low salaries. Too often, the workers hired through these channels are either unable or unwilling to deliver the level of quality required. As a result, vital services and industries that once held high standards are now struggling to maintain the level of excellence that the Western world was built upon.

Corporate decision makers are playing a role, perhaps inadvertently, in accelerating this decline. By prioritising short-term profitability over reliability, competence, and genuine expertise, they risk pushing the Western world down the same path of instability and poor-quality standards found in the very countries from which much of this so-called “global talent” originates.

The terms “global talent” and “change” have become buzzwords, too often detached from the actual skillsets of the people being hired. In some cases, individuals present fake educational certificates, fabricated work histories, or overstated expertise. This problem is compounded by organisations abroad that specialise in producing fraudulent documents for profit. What should be an earnest search for global expertise has instead, in some instances, become a commercial enterprise that manufactures the illusion of qualified professionals.

It is important to acknowledge that many individuals seek opportunities abroad simply to escape the difficult circumstances of their home countries. These issues stem from systemic failures and lack of merit-based opportunity, not from personal shortcomings. Yet the Western world’s corporations too often fail to distinguish between genuine talent and poorly vetted applicants. Meanwhile, individuals with truly exceptional abilities are typically valued and compensated within their own societies and do not need to leave their countries to validate their worth.

Tech and other large, medium, and small organisations, policymakers, and executives have increasingly adopted a recruitment strategy that exploits foreign workers while simultaneously lowering the quality of services delivered to the public. Since the pandemic, this pattern has intensified. The rush for “change,” automation, and rapid transformation has led to decisions that overlook the long-term consequences for service quality, productivity, and societal stability.

This enthusiasm for “global talent” must be carefully questioned. Not because global talent is inherently problematic, but because the systems used to verify and evaluate that talent are deeply flawed. When businesses chase savings instead of skill, they put entire industries and the public, at risk.

The public and workers has every right to challenge these practices and demand accountability from corporate leaders and government decision makers. Significant damage has already been done, and ignoring the warning signs will only deepen the consequences.

This critique is not aligned with any political ideology neither left nor right. It is a call for honesty, responsibility, and foresight. The Western world’s strength has always come from quality, integrity, and merit-based systems. If those values erode, so will the foundations upon which its prosperity was built.

If the Western world continues down this path, embracing a recruitment model defined by misleading claims and insufficient standards, then the blame for declining service quality and weakening societal structures must fall squarely on the corporate and policy leaders who allowed these conditions to take root.

The future depends on recognising this problem now, before the damage becomes irreversible.