For companies hiring across borders, or planning to, the first episode of Combine Talks is a useful shortcut. In Unlocking Global Talent: Insights on Global Hiring, the team covers practical ways to approach global recruiting and set up distributed teams that work.
This article pulls out the main lessons, with notes on how they apply to hiring in Latin America.
Why Global Hiring Can't Wait
The labor market is shifting quickly. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 expects 170 million new jobs to be created by 2030, as skill needs change across industries. The people with those skills will not all live near your headquarters.
For US companies, Latin America has become the most practical place to look: deep pools of senior talent, working hours that overlap with US teams and lower costs than domestic hiring. The reasons are covered in why global companies hire in Latin America.
7 Practical Takeaways
1. Design the role around skills, not location
Write each role around outcomes and must-have skills. Treat degrees and location as preferences unless the law or the work requires them. A skills-first scorecard also makes it easier to compare candidates from different education systems fairly.
In practice, that means replacing "five years of experience and a computer science degree" with what the person must deliver: for example, "own the payments API and cut checkout errors in the first quarter." Candidates in São Paulo, Bogotá or Mexico City can be evaluated against the same outcome, whatever their CV looks like.
2. Source where the signal is
Combine outbound search, through portfolios, open-source work and niche communities, with market-specific job boards and referrals. Measure the response rate and how many candidates reach a qualified interview, not just how many apply. In Latin America, the strongest candidates are usually employed and found through networks, not job ads.
3. Tighten the remote interview loop
Time-boxed stages, structured rubrics and short work samples cut the time to a decision and make evaluation fairer across cultures and time zones. For engineering roles, a short paired exercise with a team member often gives the same signal as a multi-day take-home, and shows how the candidate collaborates. Long unpaid tests are one of the fastest ways to lose senior candidates; more on that in how recruiting culture attracts or loses talent.
4. Be compliance-ready from day zero
For each country, map whether you will hire through an Employer of Record (EOR) or a local entity, how intellectual property is assigned, how personal data is protected and which benefits are mandatory. A one-page checklist per country prevents rework later.
The details differ more than most teams expect. Brazil requires a 13th salary and monthly FGTS deposits under a CLT contract, Colombia mandates a semi-annual service bonus, and Mexico's tax authority scrutinizes contractor arrangements that look like employment. Deciding the model before the offer avoids renegotiating with a candidate who has already accepted.
5. Pay for value, not ZIP codes
Use a transparent salary band tied to role level and market benchmarks, and decide in advance when to anchor to global, regional or local pay. Explaining that logic to candidates builds trust. Current numbers by role are in the LATAM salary bands.
6. Onboard like you mean it
Prepare a 30-60-90 day plan, assign a buddy and write down how the team works: feedback cadence, meeting norms and core hours. That is how distributed teams avoid early attrition.
Time zones help here. Teams in Latin America share most of the US working day, so new hires can join the same standups and get answers in real time. The risk is not distance but exclusion: remote hires who miss the informal context that colleagues at headquarters pick up without trying.
7. Measure what matters
Track time to the first productive week, hiring manager satisfaction and 90-day retention alongside the usual funnel metrics, and review them by country and function. A monthly review by country also shows when a market is getting harder: a longer time to fill or more rejected offers usually means the salary benchmark or the employer pitch needs updating. The approach is detailed in data-driven decision making in HR.
What to Watch for in the Episode
How to balance speed, quality and compliance when opening a new country.
How to build a repeatable global hiring playbook that the team can run without heroics.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you hire global talent in Latin America?
Define the role around skills, choose the country that fits the role, decide the employment model before the offer, source through local networks and run a short, structured process. The country comparison is in which LATAM country to hire from.
Do I need a local entity to hire talent abroad?
No. An Employer of Record can employ the professional under local law on your behalf, handling contracts, payroll and benefits.
How do you pay employees in another country?
Through the employment model. With an Employer of Record or a local entity, employees are paid through local payroll in the local currency, with taxes and mandatory benefits handled under local law. In some markets, such as Argentina, salaries for roles hired by US companies are often negotiated in US dollars.
What should a compliance checklist for a new country include?
The employment model, the mandatory benefits, notice and termination rules, how intellectual property is assigned, how personal data is protected and how payroll and taxes are handled.
How do you onboard remote hires in another country?
With a written 30-60-90 day plan, a buddy, documented team norms and the same tools and meetings as everyone else on the team.
Your Next Step
Global hiring is no longer a side project. The companies doing it well treat cross-border recruiting like a product: clearly defined, measured and improved over time.
Combine Global Recruitment has completed more than 800 placements for companies in the US, Canada and Europe. Watch the full episode, or book a call to plan your next hire in Latin America.
