Jared Orkin💡Activate Talent

Global hiring isn't just about lowering costs. It's about giving companies access to better talent and more ways to grow. A lot of companies assume they need to keep hiring contractors the same way they've always done it. But sometimes the bigger opportunity is stepping back and looking at how the entire team operates. We recently met with a major beauty brand and spent time with its creative, finance, and other departments to understand their workflows and challenges. Within an hour, we identified opportunities to potentially reduce contractor costs by nearly 70%. That could give the company room to bring in more people, strengthen its teams, and improve how work gets done. That's what global hiring should make possible. It's not just about spending less. It's about getting more out of your people and building a business that's ready to scale. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

B-players bring you problems. A-players bring you solutions. The difference between an A-player and a B-player isn't just how much work they get done. It's how they approach problems and affect the people around them. A-players take ownership, bring solutions, and make the rest of the team better. B-players can create more work for everyone else by constantly passing problems up the chain. That's why founders should take a close look at their org chart and understand who's actually moving the business forward. At Activate Talent, we help companies evaluate their teams, identify where stronger talent could make a difference, and find pre-vetted candidates to fill those seats. The goal isn't simply to replace people. It's to build a team where everyone raises the standard. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

One thing experienced founders look for when hiring salespeople is consistency, not just ambition. When hiring salespeople, ambition and a strong track record aren't the only things worth looking at. Consistency matters too. Someone who has changed jobs every six months might have a perfectly reasonable explanation, but you need to understand the pattern before bringing them onto your team. Look at how long they've stayed in previous roles, what made them leave, and whether they're genuinely interested in building something long term. Candidates who've spent several years at a company can show a different kind of commitment and stability. Job changes aren't automatically a dealbreaker, but avoiding the conversation is a mistake. Ask direct questions before you make the hire. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

I love our mission and its responses like this that make me go even harder

The worst time to realize you're understaffed is when Black Friday orders start rolling in. Black Friday can put pressure on every part of your business, from customer support and order management to marketing and operations. Ticket volumes rise, SLAs get harder to hit, and even a strong team can struggle to keep up. That's why it's worth identifying the gaps before the rush begins. Activate Talent can help businesses access pre vetted customer support agents, project managers with AI implementation experience, and specialists in lifecycle marketing, CRM, and CRO. Whether you need temporary coverage or extra help getting your campaigns ready, the goal is to get the right people in place before problems start costing you sales. Don't wait until Black Friday to figure out what's missing from your team. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

I love seeing Tobi's and Harley's newest shopify launch on my feed. ...I hate to then see doomsday planning going viral 5 seconds later. Can't we all just love what Shopify is doing for one day w/o doomerism.

Great employees want the best people around them. Insecure employees may see great hires as a threat. One of the biggest barriers to global hiring isn't finding qualified people. It's getting past the assumption that great talent has to be local. When a company considers bringing in someone with years of experience from another country, the conversation should be about their skills, track record, and ability to deliver. Not where they live. Resistance can sometimes come from people who feel threatened by bringing in someone capable, but hesitation alone doesn't make someone a B-player. The real test is whether your team evaluates candidates fairly and stays open to better ways of getting work done. Great companies build teams around ability, not geography. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

Best explanation I've seen of what changed in paid media. Meta's AI does the targeting now. A great media buyer isn't tweaking audiences anymore. They're feeding the algo better data and better creative. That's the skill we hire for now.

The best way to evaluate a creative hire is to see what they can actually make, not just what their resume says. AI tools are creating new opportunities to hire specialized talent globally, from Higgsfield video editors to AI graphic designers who create product images for Amazon, product pages, and paid ads. You don't always need someone sitting in your office to get great creative work. The bigger question is how to know whether a candidate can actually deliver for your brand. At Activate Talent, we use paid work tests to help answer that question. Candidates receive raw files from your business and create edits, clips, or other creative assets before you spend time interviewing them. You get to judge the actual work, see who understands your brand, and decide who deserves a conversation. It's a more practical way to hire based on ability rather than taking a chance on a resume. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

Your job as CEO isn't to make every decision. It's to build a team that can make the right ones without you. Hiring a sales team should give you more time to grow the business, not fill your calendar with approvals. But if every major discount, complicated contract, and negotiation still needs your sign off, your team can't move faster than you can. The fix starts with giving salespeople clear rules and the authority to make everyday decisions. Managers should handle exceptions, while the CEO focuses on the decisions that actually shape the business. You still need visibility into what's happening, but that doesn't mean you need to approve every move. The goal is to build a team that can close deals, solve problems, and keep revenue moving without waiting for you. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

The difference between someone's salary and their true cost to the company can be tens of thousands of dollars. A $75K salary doesn't mean you're spending $75K on an employee. Once you add healthcare, payroll taxes, retirement contributions, recruiting fees, and other employment costs, the total can climb significantly. In this example, a local hire comes to roughly $119K a year, even though the base salary is only $75K. Activate Talent says a comparable role could cost around $2,400 a month, or $28,500 a year, with recruiting, benefits, payroll taxes, and employment support included in one rate. The point isn't to compare salaries alone. It's to understand the full cost of getting the work done and what that means for your bottom line. Before making your next hire, calculate the real number and compare your options. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

Just saying, if OpenAI is not using bots or agents to run their community engagement and communications… In other news we have pre vetted community manager candidates! DM me and get one instantly.

Founders still wait days for a staffing agency to call them back. We decided to change that. Hiring shouldn't start with days of emails just to find out whether a staffing partner has someone available. When a business needs a media buyer, affiliate marketer, or another key hire, waiting around means lost time and potentially lost revenue. That's why Activate Talent put its available talent bench online, with real candidates, specialties, and photos you can browse before booking a discovery call. Find the category, choose the role, and request an interview directly. And if you don't have an interview within 24 hours, I'll give you two weeks with the candidate for free. The idea is simple: speed shouldn't be a bonus in staffing. It should be part of the product. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

If you think Activate Talent only hires customer support reps, look at how many other roles we've filled. A lot of companies start with global hiring in customer support because the need is obvious and the return is easy to measure. But once they see the quality of the people they hire, they start expanding into finance, creative, data, marketing, operations, and leadership. That's how a hiring relationship grows beyond filling seats and becomes a way to build a stronger team. The goal isn't simply to pay less. It's to find people who take ownership, think critically, and deliver great work inside your business. With potential cost savings of up to 70%, the financial upside matters too, but it shouldn't be the only reason you hire globally. The real opportunity is getting the right person for the role, wherever they happen to live. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

Your best employee might be the biggest operational risk in your entire company. Your best employee can become a business risk when every decision, answer, and workaround depends on them. They might be an incredible performer, but if nobody else knows how to do what they do, the whole department is vulnerable when they leave or take time off. The solution is to build backup before you need it, not scramble to replace someone after they've resigned. Put a strong number two in place, get them involved in the systems and processes, and see whether the team can keep operating when your top performer is away. That's how you turn individual expertise into a repeatable team capability. And if finding that second person locally is too expensive, global talent can help you build the redundancy your business needs. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

Your first offshore hire doesn't need to come with a complicated setup. Hiring offshore can get confusing quickly, especially when you're trying to figure out whether you need an Employer of Record or a Contractor of Record. With an EOR, Activate helps manage employment, payroll, benefits, and related responsibilities. With a COR, we support contractor engagement through our entity. The right setup depends on your business, the role, and how you want to structure the relationship. We help you understand your options instead of leaving you to figure everything out alone. We also offer a more hands on approach, drawing on our experience working with major US brands, agencies, and SaaS companies. And according to our pricing, we're 20% cheaper than Deel. If you're considering your first international hire, we'll walk you through the options, and your first two weeks are on us. Activate Talent helps U.S. companies hire international employees, recruit top overseas talent, and build high-performing global teams without the complexity.

i wish apple made it easier to pair up stray airpods. when you're searching, each one could play its own tone that matches its partner, so you could tell which ones go together instead of buying a new pair every time.

I love huddles

Grok Bot is the way