How an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing firm scaled headcount and saved <span class="case-study_highlight">$500k</span> per year hiring in LatAm

Delve is a digital consulting firm that improves paid marketing ROI for their clients. As their business grew, they needed to hire top talent quickly. Hiring in Latin America was interesting to them, given the time zone overlap with the US and access to affordable talent. They approached Near to help them hire for 3 roles in LatAm and were so satisfied they worked with us to fill another 7 positions.

Summary

• The Problem: As a rapidly expanding company, Delve was constantly seeking ideal candidates to fill new vacancies.
• The Challenge: In the US, Delve had to compete in a shallow talent pool with high salaries. Moving some operations to Eastern Europe helped to alleviate this problem, but differing time zones and the conflict in Ukraine created new challenges.
• Roles hired for: Sr. Programmatic Media Trader, Marketing Automation Specialist, Data Scientist, Ad Ops, Sr. Marketing Data Agent, Marketing Data Agent, AdTech Solutions Consultant, Digital Marketing Consultant, Team Leader
• Why Delve chose Near: Delve was exploring the Latin American talent market, but had not always been satisfied by the results they got from other hiring partners. The president of Delve was impressed by Near’s consistent professionalism at every level. On top of that, Near already had experience filling similar Marketing roles for other firms like Propensity. Near also made it easy to identify the top candidates since we screened for role fit and English-level.
• Solution: Near filled 3 positions for Delve with highly-qualified candidates at significant savings. Delve soon after engaged Near to fill 7 additional positions across the board, ranging from junior to highly experienced candidates.
• Results: By filling their vacancies with Latin American talent, Delve is now saving $491,000 a year in payroll.
• Hiring in Latin America gives you access to a large pool of high-quality candidates who will work for reasonable salaries.
• Many of the financial, logistical, and legal issues of hiring in Latin America can be handled with software.

The Challenge (hiring to keep up with rapid growth)

For years, Delve has been seeking to hire the best available talent to keep up with growth. Over the past 12 months, they went from 97 to 139 employees, increasing their headcount by 43%. Their growth was mainly in the Marketing and IT departments.

Finding good people has been an ongoing challenge for Delve, especially when it comes to finding people who not only fit the job description but also fit their culture.

This is a common challenge for many businesses, and Near is able to help.

The Problem (a “shallow” talent market)

Delve is a rapidly growing digital consultancy firm that helps companies increase ROI on digital marketing, advertising and branding efforts.

They are a top-rated partner for some of the biggest marketing and tech names, including Google, Amazon AWS, and Meta. Moreover, their client list is full of high-profile companies, such as Unicef, AT&T, and Wynn Resorts.

In order to support their rapid growth, they need to hire more world-class teammates. However, their hiring unit has encountered a number of issues sourcing and hiring great candidates:

• The US talent market is a shallow place, where it is difficult to draw upon a large pool of candidates for a given position.
• Salaries are exceptionally high in the US, which has increased overall costs for Delve. The salary demands sometimes force Delve to raise the prices of their offerings.
• While based in the US, Delve has offices in Warsaw, Poland and Minsk, Belarus. The war in Ukraine significantly impacted their activity in these two countries.
• The situation further highlighted some of the ongoing issues that were caused by having staff in different time zones.

Above all, Delve needed to find talent closer to home.

Why Delve chose to work with Near

We felt confident in the competence of Near’s team. Many times with professional services, when you’re talking to senior management and founders everything seems perfect. But then, when you get redirected to middle management or junior people at the organization, the quality is very different. I didn’t see that with Near.

Anton Lipkanou

President of DELVE

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While dealing with these local and overseas challenges, Delve learned that many companies have centers for excellence in Brazil and Argentina. This piqued their interest in the Latin American market.Delve became interested in Near for multiple reasons:

• Near specializes in the Latin American market, which made us a strong candidate to support Delve On top of that, we had previous experience filling similar Marketing roles for Propensity.
• Delve had worked with a number of other hiring partners in Latin America, and some of these partners delivered disappointing results.
• After a few initial conversations, the president of Delve felt confident we could provide recruits who not only fit the job description, but were aligned with Delve’s culture--an important requirement.

Aligning with the company culture

“Digging deep” is an important part of Delve’s culture. It is literally the definition of the word delve.

“Is the person on the other side digging deep?” asked Delve president Anton Lipkanou. “Are they asking the right questions? Can they explain back to me what I should expect? Near’s team gave us all of that”

Anton highlighted the quality of the service across all levels of Near. Delve felt like everyone understood their expectations and tried their best to fulfill these expectations in the most efficient manner possible.

How Near delivered results

Initially, Delve engaged with Near to fill three roles: Sr Programmatic Media Trader, Data Scientist, and Ad Ops.

We helped them solve their initial challenge by filling those positions with top quality talent at a fraction of the cost in the US.

It is essential for a distributed team like Delve’s to build a strong work culture. Therefore, Near made sure to select candidates that align perfectly with the values and principles upheld by Delve.

Delve was impressed by the candidates we were able to recruit, and decided to fill another 7 positions with us, ranging from junior to highly experienced candidates.

By filling their open jobs with top Latin American talent, we’ve managed to save Delve upwards of half a million dollars per year.

ROI

• Delve’s 10 Latin American hires cost roughly $500,000 per year in salaries
• By comparison, filling similar positions with US-based talent would cost $830,000 to $1,000,000 according to salary research from Glassdoor, Indeed, Salary.com and ZipRecruiter
• Delve is saving an estimated $500,000 per year in salaries

Why Delve chose Latin American talent

Delve admired the resourcefulness of the Latin American talent pool, and their desire to achieve success through hard work. In addition:

• Delve seeks candidates with a growth mindset, which is embedded in the psyche of the Latin American work culture.
• There is a significantly bigger pool of top marketers that are currently looking for a job in Latin America than there is in the US.
• Anton, President of Delve, believes that the Latin American talent market is similar to that of Belarus. There is an abundance of top 1% talent, making it possible to compete for and hire the best professionals.

Delve’s advice for companies looking to hire in Latin America

According to Delve employees responsible for hiring, it is important to look for the right person. Don’t settle for someone who will simply “show up” and come into the office every day. Here are some other tips on hiring in Latin America:

• Just as with candidates anywhere, chemistry and alignment with your company’s culture are important factors to take into consideration.
• Look for people (both recruiters and hires) who are driven by results.
• Most of all, it’s key to find the right local partner that can bring you up to speed, especially in South America. The right partner can help you identify strong work and education experience, vet for strong English levels, consult on market salary rates for different roles, and more. You need to find someone that knows how to find, select and pay top-notch candidates.

Takeaways

There are three main takeaways from Delve's foray into the LatAm hiring market:

• By hiring in Latin America, you have access to many high-quality candidates who will work for reasonable salaries.
• The top Latin American employees tend to have a growth mindset and a strong work ethic.
• To save time and avoid sub-par candidates, it is critical to have a skilled and experienced recruiting partner who understands the Latin American market.

Are you working in a high-performing, remote-friendly company that's growing? If you'd like to learn more about hiring top talent while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, set up a free call with one of our recruiting experts.

To learn more about Delve, visit Delve's website.