Local vs Global Teams: How to Hire the Right People Anywhere (James Dooley Interviews Mads Singers)

James Dooley Hi, today I’m joined with Mads Singers and today’s topic is how to understand location when hiring, whether someone should be remote globally or local in an office. At what point do you decide what the best recruit would be? Mads Singers My process is very simple, but I want to take a step back first. The goal of hiring people is to get a great return on investment. Some people insist you have to hire expensive or hire cheap. I don’t care about cheap or expensive. I care about return on investment. If someone is doing a basic job that anyone can do and you pay 50 bucks an hour, you’re wasting resources. The starting point is always what needs doing and what skill set is required. Based on that, where does it make the most sense to hire? For example, over the last 10 to 15 years we hired a lot of developers in Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine. They weren’t always the best, but often comparable to the US or UK, while prices were significantly lower, often 50 to 70 percent lower. The skill set might be 20 percent lower, but the value versus output was better. People say you can get cheaper in India or the Philippines. Yes, but the goal is not cheap. The goal is best return on investment. We started in the Philippines, hired a lot of people and still do, but over time we found better value in South Africa in many cases. The price level was about 20 percent higher, but the quality, native English, and better time zones for Europe and the US made it a game changer. You can find great people everywhere, but some places make it easier to find great people at scale at a good cost. First identify the role. Number one, do they need to be physically present? If you want a door to door salesperson, you hire locally where you sell. If you’re an Indian SEO agency targeting the US or UK, that local hire might still be an American or British person. Then look at cultural insights. Some roles benefit from strong cultural understanding of the target country. A good example is a client in the ski niche selling ski equipment. They kept trying to hire Filipinos who had never seen snow and couldn’t connect with the products. Cultural relevance matters. James Dooley I like the return on investment approach. We hire globally. We hired a lot of Filipino VAs, and for video editing we realised Vietnam was better for us. We’ve got several Vietnamese editors who collaborate and share new tools. For our overflow call centre, South Africa was unbelievable, but we also used the Philippines for different time zones. We’ve started to hire in different countries for different roles. I’m going to put you on the spot. I’ll name job roles and you name two or three countries best suited. What are the best countries for developers? Mads Singers Still Eastern Europe. Ukrainians are amazing. There are many countries with high quality at affordable rates, like Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Croatia. Ukraine is in a tough spot, but there are great Ukrainian developers around Europe. Poland has good developers too, but they’re more expensive and closer to Western European rates now. James Dooley Social media management. Mads Singers We do a lot from South Africa. We hire our in house social media team there. There are cultural aspects too. For TikTok, what works in Vietnam is not necessarily what works in the UK, and UK is not always the same as the US. It’s often important to find people who understand the target market. We also have recruiters. If we hire for UK roles, we prefer people who have recruited in the UK for years. They understand the role and the culture, which matters a lot. James Dooley Next role. Content writing for websites. Mads Singers Content writing, again South Africa. They’re very good, dedicated, native English, and a good time zone. You can work with them from almost anywhere. Cheaper exists in India and the Philippines, but the cultural understanding and writing quality is often higher in South Africa. Native English is a game changer. Sometimes near native writing still reads oddly. We’ve also had good people in Eastern Europe, but native English makes a big difference for content. James Dooley Next role, and this is a tricky one. Artificial intelligence. AI agents, AI workflows, n8n, make.com. Which countries are best for people who innovate, not just follow tasks? Mads Singers We followed an interesting process. We went to Facebook groups and Upwork with very defined jobs, found interesting people, and often hired two or three people to build the same thing to compare approaches. When we found good people, we tested them repeatedly, then offered them a significantly higher salary to bring them in house. There’s heavy competition for automation talent and good people get constant offers, so you often need to pay well. We found great people in Egypt, India, South Africa, and Eastern Europe. I haven’t found one country that is consistently best. The key is teaching your team to define what needs doing and how it should be done. Hiring someone to figure out what’s happening and automate it is much harder. It takes longer and requires a higher skill set. If you can define the job clearly, the skill requirement drops and you get better results. James Dooley Last job role. Management. A business has staff across ten countries. What about managing that? Does it need to be local? Can a Filipino manage South Africans and Eastern Europeans? What do you recommend? Mads Singers Management is global. Cultural nuances exist. Filipinos might react differently to feedback than South Africans. Leaders and managers are a growth opportunity. Remote management exposes bad managers. In person, a weak manager can get away with things through natural communication. Remote removes that. The manager must drive communication. If they lack communication skills, it gets exposed fast. Around COVID, companies told me remote doesn’t work because performance dropped. Remote works. My companies have been remote for over ten years. What changed was that managers needed better management training. Time zone overlap helps, but there can be benefits from different cultures too. For example, some clients have Filipino teams with Filipino management and struggle to get the highest performance because everything becomes very Filipino. Pressure drops. Remote management requires more skill, but strong managers with training can often drive better outputs. James Dooley If a business owner is moving from local hiring to global hiring, should they reach out to Aristo Sourcing, or to Mads Singers Consultancy first? What’s the best approach if they’re not sure what role they need? Mads Singers Aristo Sourcing has a great team. If you go there and set up a call, they will help identify roles and guide you. There are many good recruitment companies. It doesn’t have to be Aristo Sourcing. My main advice is never hire until you’re confident someone can do the job. People get sent three to five candidates and pick the best, but the key question is whether the person is good enough. If you’re not confident they’re good enough, don’t hire. A recruiter doesn’t know your company like you do. You need confidence it’s the right hire. People can reach out to aristosourcing.com and set up a call. The team will give free guidance. James Dooley Perfect. I appreciate having you on, Mads. If anyone watching is struggling to take the next step and go global, leave a comment explaining what’s stopping you. Going global gives you access to a much bigger talent pool for specific roles. Appreciate having you, Mads. See you again soon. Cheers.