SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2220688 - Candidate Country/Region field behavior and Known Issues - Recruiting Management

Symptom

The candidate country/region field has some special behaviors and it follows a specific configuration in order to work properly. This configuration is required in order to allow the system to run smoothly since some features rely on this field to work, features such as candidate field permissions, data privacy statement, and also the candidate search.

This article will explain the behaviors and necessary configuration along with known issues. If you want to better understand the whole candidate profile configuration, please refer to Candidate Profile in SAP SuccessFactors section in RCM implementation guide.

Index:

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management

Reproducing the Issue

Creating Candidate Profile

The Candidate country/region field is populated using two functionalities:

  • When a recruiting is adding a Candidate:
  1. Go to Recruiting and click on the ‘Candidates’ sub-tab;
  2. Click on ‘Add Candidate’;
  3. Country/Region field is displayed as a mandatory field;


ADD candidate.png

  • When the candidate is creating their candidate profile:
  1. Go to the external career site;
  2. Hit Create Profile;
  3. Country/Region field is displayed as a mandatory field;

Career country.png

Please Note: The country/region selections from the above examples can be updated later by a candidate or recruiter considering the relevant permissions are provided.

Resolution

Basic Behavior

The country/region field in the candidate profile has an important job, the value selected by the candidate will be used by the system to validate things like:

  • Which Data Privacy statement to display to the candidate when the candidate is creating the profile (If DPCS is configured 2341235);
  • When a candidate is applying to a Job Requisition, the system will validate the write/read field Permission and which fields to be displayed to this candidate based on country/region selection;
  • If the Candidate Visibility Option is enabled, the Recruiter country/region is validated against the country/region selected by the candidate to return this candidate in the search (More details  2213656);

 

Required Configuration

Since the country/region field is validated by different features in the system, it needs to follow one specific configuration. When defining the field in the candidate profile, it MUST use the standard id "country", type "picklist", and link to the standard picklist "country".

Here is an example of the standard configuration:

<field-definition id="country" type="picklist" required="false" custom="false" anonymize="false" sensitive="false">
<field-label mime-type="text-plain"><![CDATA[Country of Residence]]></field-label>
<field-label mime-type="text-plain" lang="en_US"><![CDATA[Country of Residence]]></field-label>
<field-description><![CDATA[country]]></field-description>
<field-description lang="en_US"><![CDATA[country]]></field-description>
<picklist-id>country</picklist-id>
</field-definition>

 

Country/Region Picklist Configuration

When configuring the country/region picklist, it is also necessary to follow a specific configuration. You need to follow a specific label convention in English language. This is necessary due to the system architecture because behind the scenes there is a hardcoded table with a list containing all the countries. The system uses the candidate country/region selection, extract the English US label linked to that option and validate it against this hardcoded table. If the EN_US label does not follow the correct standards the system may generate an error and some countries may be missing from the list or after a candidate selects an invalid option (if displayed) the UI may not show any field in candidate view.

Most of the en_US follow the ISO standard, however, there are some exceptions and the system will only accept the value that matches the hardcoded table.

Note: You can find the complete list of countries and correct English labels by the end of this article.

 

How to Edit the Country/Region Picklist

The Picklist functionality is a platform feature and Recruiting Module just uses it to populate the country/region information. You can check below articles to see necessary steps to edit the country/region picklist:

  • 2088658 - Picklists: Working with Legacy Picklists (Importing, Editing and Creating) - Platform
  • 2463527 - How to edit MDF Picklist

 

Common Issues

  • Issue: When creating a candidate profile (Add candidate feature or Career portal) the country/region list is empty.
  • Cause: The field "country" is not defined in the candidate profile template.

  • Issue: When creating or editing a candidate profile the desired country/region is not displayed in the list.
  • Cause: The desired country/region is either not defined in the standard picklist "country" or it has the wrong English (EN_US) label. If the English label does not follow the correct configuration, the system will no display it in the country list. Check the end of this KBA for the complete country list.

  • Issue: Additional values like "Others" are not displayed in the country/region list.
  • Cause: This has the same cause as the previous issue, the naming convention MUST be followed.

  • Issue: Trying to save the country/region selection on the Candidate Profile, but the value from the dropdown doesn't save and changes to "No Selection" instead.
  • Cause: This has the same cause as the previous issue, the naming convention MUST be followed.

  • Issue: I configured the standard field "country" to use the picklist "ISOCountryList" and the values are not being saved after a candidate select its country.
  • Cause: This is a misconfiguration, the candidate profile configuration only accepts the standard picklist "country". The picklist "ISOCountryList" is used by other modules.

RCM Official Country/Region List

Here is the official list of country/region labels to be used for the standard picklist "country". When declaring a new country/region, the English label MUST follow this convention:

Note: The system does not understand the countries listed below as case sensitive. (i.e.: United States and UNITED STATES would be understood the same way by the system). Although, we recommend to use United States.

AFGHANISTAN
AALAND ISLANDS
ALBANIA
ALGERIA
AMERICAN SAMOA
ANDORRA
ANGOLA
ANGUILLA
ANTARCTICA
ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
ARGENTINA
ARMENIA
ARUBA
AUSTRALIA
AUSTRIA
AZERBAIJAN
BAHAMAS
BAHRAIN
BANGLADESH
BARBADOS
BELARUS
BELGIUM
BELIZE
BENIN
BERMUDA
BHUTAN
BOLIVIA (PLURINATIONAL STATE OF)
BONAIRE, SINT EUSTATIUS AND SABA
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
BOTSWANA
BOUVET ISLAND
BRAZIL
BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
BULGARIA
BURKINA FASO
BURUNDI
CAMBODIA
CAMEROON
CANADA
CABO VERDE
CAYMAN ISLANDS
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
CHAD
CHILE
CHINA
CHRISTMAS ISLAND
COCOS (KEELING) ISLANDS
COLOMBIA
COMOROS
CONGO
CONGO, THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE
COOK ISLANDS
COSTA RICA
CÔTE D'IVOIRE
CROATIA
CUBA
CURAÇAO
CYPRUS
CZECH REPUBLIC
DENMARK
DJIBOUTI
DOMINICA
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
ECUADOR
EGYPT
EL SALVADOR
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
ERITREA
ESTONIA
ESWATINI
ETHIOPIA
FALKLAND ISLANDS (MALVINAS)
FAROE ISLANDS
FIJI
FINLAND
FRANCE
FRENCH GUIANA
FRENCH POLYNESIA
FRENCH SOUTHERN TERRITORIES
GABON
GAMBIA
GEORGIA
GERMANY
GHANA
GIBRALTAR
GREECE
GREENLAND
GRENADA
GUADELOUPE
GUAM
GUATEMALA
GUERNSEY
GUINEA
GUINEA-BISSAU
GUYANA
HAITI
HEARD ISLAND AND MCDONALD ISLANDS
HOLY SEE (VATICAN CITY STATE)
HONDURAS
HONG KONG
HUNGARY
ICELAND
INDIA
INDONESIA
IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF
IRAQ
IRELAND
ISLE OF MAN
ISRAEL
ITALY
JAMAICA
JAPAN
JERSEY
JORDAN
KAZAKHSTAN
KENYA
KIRIBATI
KOREA, DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF
KOSOVO
KUWAIT
KYRGYZSTAN
LAO PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
LATVIA
LEBANON
LESOTHO
LIBERIA
LIBYA
LIECHTENSTEIN
LITHUANIA
LUXEMBOURG
MACAO
REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA
MADAGASCAR
MALAWI
MALAYSIA
MALDIVES
MALI
MALTA
MARSHALL ISLANDS
MARTINIQUE
MAURITANIA
MAURITIUS
MAYOTTE
MEXICO
MICRONESIA, FEDERATED STATES OF
MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF
MONACO
MONGOLIA
MONTENEGRO
MONTSERRAT
MOROCCO
MOZAMBIQUE
MYANMAR
NAMIBIA
NAURU
NEPAL
NETHERLANDS
NETHERLANDS ANTILLES
NEW CALEDONIA
NEW ZEALAND
NICARAGUA
NIGER
NIGERIA
NIUE
NORFOLK ISLAND
NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS
NORWAY
OMAN
PAKISTAN
PALAU
PALESTINE, STATE OF
PANAMA
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
PARAGUAY
PERU
PHILIPPINES
PITCAIRN
POLAND
PORTUGAL
PUERTO RICO
QATAR
RÉUNION
ROMANIA
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
RWANDA
SAINT BARTHÉLEMY
SAINT HELENA
SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS
SAINT LUCIA
SAINT MARTIN
SAINT PIERRE AND MIQUELON
SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
SAMOA
SAN MARINO
SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE
SAUDI ARABIA
SENEGAL
SERBIA
SEYCHELLES
SIERRA LEONE
SINGAPORE
SINT MAARTEN
SLOVAKIA
SLOVENIA
SOLOMON ISLANDS
SOMALIA
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH GEORGIA AND THE SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS
SOUTH SUDAN
SPAIN
SRI LANKA
SUDAN
SURINAME
SVALBARD AND JAN MAYEN
SWEDEN
SWITZERLAND
SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC
TAIWAN
TAJIKISTAN
TANZANIA, UNITED REPUBLIC OF
THAILAND
TIMOR-LESTE
TOGO
TOKELAU
TONGA
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
TUNISIA
TURKEY
TURKMENISTAN
TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS
TUVALU
UGANDA
UKRAINE
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
UNITED KINGDOM
UNITED STATES
UNITED STATES MINOR OUTLYING ISLANDS
URUGUAY
UZBEKISTAN
VANUATU
VENEZUELA (BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF)
VIET NAM
VIRGIN ISLANDS, BRITISH
VIRGIN ISLANDS, U.S.
WALLIS AND FUTUNA
WESTERN SAHARA
YEMEN
ZAMBIA
ZIMBABWE

Note: If there is any country/region that is missing from the list, open a ticket with SAP cloud support and request this to be added, the request will be evaluated by Recruiting Product Management team and the next steps will be provided on the support ticket.

Latest Updates: Swaziland (SZ) has been renamed to Eswatini (SZ). See SAP SuccessFactors What's New Viewer (2H 2021) - Updates to the ISO Codes List for more information.

Keywords

candidate profile, ISOCountryList, missing country, Venezuela, Taiwan, Macao, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Saint Martin, Vietnam, Viet Nam, Saint Helena Ascension, China Country, Ivory Coast, Eswatini

, KBA , LOD-SF-RCM , Recruiting Management , LOD-SF-RCM-CAN , General Candidate Issues (not Offers, not Profiles) , LOD-SF-RCM-POR , Career and Agency Portals , LOD-SF-RCM-CAP , Candidate Profiles , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting all versions