A trained mechanical engineer, Mark Chang found himself “totally uncertain and unprepared” the first time he was called on to hire someone else.

“I didn’t even know why I was hired in the first place—what did they like about me?” Chang recalls. “So, how do I go out and look for the next person?”

Years later, Chang is now in the business of helping companies find good candidates to hire. He’s the founder and CEO of JobStreet.com, a Malaysia-based employment portal serving 80,000 companies and 11 million job seekers in Southeast Asia, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Western Europe.

At a panel discussion on human capital and social mobility at the recent Wharton Global Forum in Kuala Lumpur, Chang noted that it’s often difficult for even experienced HR professionals to hire the right person—or even to figure out what defines the “right” candidate for a particular position. The process has become even more fraught as companies become increasingly global and managers are overseeing employees who hail from a number of different countries and cultures, many of them working remotely.

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