Enterprise Clients Academy | Thursday, Aug 6 | 1:00 PM CST

Hiring High‑Agency Talent

1Find them

2Know they’re good

3Ramp them

4Cut them

600,000+

candidates in our system

3 vetted

candidates in 5 days

97%

still in seat after one year

Lifetime

replacement guarantee

Open: “I run this process every week. Today I am giving you the whole thing, including the parts most recruiting companies would rather keep behind the curtain.”
Credibility: Land 600,000+ candidates in our system before teaching. It gives the room an immediate reason to trust the machinery.
Identity: Introduce yourself as Eddie Carroll, founder of Opus, and set the context: Enterprise Clients Academy, Thursday, Aug 6, 1:00 PM CST.
Frame: These four questions are the full hiring loop: where to find high-agency people, how to know they are good, how to ramp them, and when to cut.
Story: The big change in my hiring life came after I finally worked with a true A player. The difference was obvious: ownership, follow-through, and answers instead of excuses.
Proof strip: The system produces 3 vetted candidates in 5 days, 97% are still in seat after one year, and the lifetime replacement guarantee protects the hire afterward.
Promise: You will get the exact system and free tools to run it yourself, then we will bring one role into a live rebuild and Q&A.
Punchline: Once you know what high agency looks like, instruction-waiting gets very hard to tolerate.
Transition: “Before I show you where the good people are, I want to show you the trap that keeps agency owners hiring the wrong ones.”

The Trap | Cheap First

Cheap hiring creates instruction‑waiters

US corporate seats

15x base salary

Hiring success: ~50%

Pay 25% above local market

LatAm: roughly half US price

Pay more. Get ownership, not nuisance.

Open: “Most agency owners do not have a hiring problem first. They have a cheap-first problem.”
Set the trap: Upwork, Fiverr, and BPO-trained talent can produce good task-takers. The failure comes when you expect cheap, early-career hires to think like owners after a career of receiving exact instructions.
Story: Tell the Philippines story exactly. I used to hire there at $6-$8 an hour. My wife’s mom is Filipina, and I love the Philippine people. I would hear “yes sir, yes ma’am,” see the nodding, hear “got it,” and then a full day later the work did not match.
Detail: I was up at 11 p.m., midnight, and 1 a.m. helping, while the hire missed issues and waited for the next instruction. It was more nuisance than help.
Turn: When I doubled the pay, the difference was night and day: more energy, real opinions, and solutions brought to the table instead of problems.
Compare markets: Pakistan brought more skill, but still came with excuses and a brutal time difference. Latin America is where it clicked: people cared, brought solutions, skipped the drama, and felt like a real team.
Land the number honestly: “ghSMART’s research for US corporate seats puts a mis-hire at around 15 times base salary.” That is their US corporate research number, not a claim that every global hire costs 15 times.
Ground it: Even if the true number for a global hire is a fraction of that, a mis-hire still burns months of salary, your time, and client trust. The average manager gets hiring right about 50% of the time.
Rule: Pay about 25% above the local market for mid-to-senior, AI-fluent people with specific achievements. Hire people who use AI and can still show their own thinking. In Latin America, that stronger hire is still roughly half the price of the same US seat, sometimes less.
Punchline: The cheap hire costs less per hour and can consume more of the owner’s life. Better pay buys judgment, not just output.
Transition: “Pay matters, but money cannot fix a search in the wrong place. Here is the board map we use.”

Source | Go Local

Find A players where locals look

Latin AmericaGet on Board · CompuTrabajo · Bumeran · OCC Mundial · Laborum

PhilippinesOnlineJobs.ph · JobStreet · Kalibrr

South AfricaPnet · Careers24 · CareerJunction · OfferZen

Eastern EuropeDjinni · Just Join IT · No Fluff Jobs · eJobs

IndiaNaukri · Instahyre · Cutshort

Remote-globalWe Work Remotely · RemoteOK · Wellfound

$8/day

Open: “There is no magic country. There are strong people in every market, and they gather in different places.”
Map: Walk through the actual board map. Latin America: Get on Board, CompuTrabajo, Bumeran, OCC Mundial, Laborum. Philippines: OnlineJobs.ph, JobStreet, Kalibrr. South Africa: Pnet, Careers24, CareerJunction, OfferZen. Eastern Europe: Djinni, Just Join IT, No Fluff Jobs, eJobs. India: Naukri, Instahyre, Cutshort. Remote-global: We Work Remotely, RemoteOK, Wellfound.
Rule: Use the board local professionals already trust. Do not reduce an entire country to “remote talent” and expect the best people to appear on a generic marketplace.
Budget: LinkedIn ads work from $8 a day. Owners do not need a giant ad budget to test a market.
Free-tier caveat: JobStreet offers free Lite ads and Wellfound offers free posting. CompuTrabajo’s basic post exposes the first 10 CVs. Laborum’s free ad exposes the first 15 applicants. Many other boards are paid, freemium, or success-fee, so check current employer terms.
Story: Share the move that worked for you: stop searching for “cheap overseas help” and start recruiting abroad the same way you would recruit in the US. LatAm is your favorite market because the people you found cared, brought solutions, and felt like teammates.
Global frame: The system works across every region on this map. The market changes; the sourcing discipline does not.
Sauce: Use Parallel and Exa to find A players and cold-email them directly. Hunt for craft-improvement signals, including people interacting with lead magnets in your niche. The best candidate may already be employed and getting better in public.
Punchline: A local professional uses a local professional board. Go where the market already is.
Transition: “The board gets you distribution. The money and the post determine who stops scrolling.”

Source | Sell the Seat

Pay for ownership. Write for proof.

200 good applicants

25% above local market

$5,500/month

vs $150K-$200K US seat

Day-to-day · traits · benefits · full gauntlet

Experienced operator. Different labor market.

Open: “The post is a sales page and a filter. It should do both before you ever open a resume.”
Story: Tell Santiago’s story with the real sequence. He served in the Argentine Navy, is earning his MBA at one of Argentina’s most elite universities, and was a senior manager at Toptal overseeing a large team.
Context: He has startup experience and is in the middle-to-late stage of his career. Santiago owns work all the way through, follows up, makes no excuses, and finds an answer.
Land the number: Put $5,500 a month versus $150,000-$200,000 a year in the air and pause. That is the seat comparison.
Teach the post: Sell the actual day-to-day, not a vague title and a bag of duties. Post the salary about 25% above local market. That is the biggest single indicator of applicant quality.
Filter: Name the traits you require, such as detail orientation, ownership, and follow-through. The right people lean in. Include benefits because career-level people compare the whole opportunity.
Gauntlet: Publish the full process in the post: video assessment, interview, and take-home assignment. Lazy applicants should know enough to quit before applying.
Punchline: You are not hiring a cheaper version of a US junior. You are hiring an experienced operator in a different labor market.
Transition: “Two hundred good applications are useless if you change your definition of good for every resume. The rubric comes first.”

Screen | Define Good Before Names

Rubric first. Names later.

01Mission

02Outcomes

03Competencies

90%

A player: chance

top 10%

outcomes

Specificity: I · numbers · decisions · outcomes

500 applicants

AI grades blind.

Humans probe survivors.

3-5 presented

Global talent. Same bar.

Open: “The rubric has to exist before the candidate does. Otherwise every polished person changes your definition of good.”
Global frame: Credit ghSMART and the book Who. The Who method was written for US corporate hiring. Eddie adapted the machinery for global talent markets. You are not poaching a staff engineer from Apple in Sunnyvale; you are finding the top 10 percent of the talent pool in Buenos Aires, Manila, or Warsaw for that seat.
Bar: The scorecard and structured screen work exactly the same there. The region changes; the bar does not.
Definition: Read the A-player definition from Who: “A candidate who has at least a 90 percent chance of achieving a set of outcomes that only the top 10 percent of possible candidates could achieve.”
Scorecard: Mission is why the role exists. Outcomes are the measurable results this person must achieve, with a number and deadline. Competencies are how the person must operate to achieve those outcomes.
Build first: Turn that scorecard into the rubric before the first application arrives. Make every candidate answer the same evidence questions and have AI score every assessment against the same bar.
Funnel: At Opus, roughly 500 applicants become resume and contact information, then English, typing, and 3-4 video answers, then a blind AI grade against the rubric, then human recruiters probing survivors for behavioral evidence, then 3-5 candidates worth presenting to a customer.
Specificity: Listen for “I,” numbers, decisions, before-and-after results, and what the candidate learned. “We,” tool lists, polished generalities, and missing outcomes hide weak ownership.
Land the number: 500 becomes 3-5. That is how narrow a real A-player search gets.
Shortcut: The work list is the pitch. Eddie’s team already runs the rubric, form plumbing, AI grading, and human narrowing every week, producing 3 vetted candidates in 5 days.
Transition: “Now I will show you the free pipeline that turns every applicant into one gradeable row.”

Screen | Free Tools, Build It Tonight

Build the free pipeline tonight

Form

→

Sheet

→

AI grade

App questions + resume

Speed test screenshot

Typing test screenshot

Vocaroo audio

EF SET (CEFR)

Loom answers

01Greatest success, biggest challenge you worked through

02Tools where you are a real expert

03Recent work: problem, what you built, outcome

04Hardest problem this year: diagnosis to solution

Devs · marketing · accounting B1-B2

Customer-facing C1-C2

Open: “You can build this tonight without buying an applicant-tracking system.”
Plumbing: Post the job and send applicants to a Google Form. Responses land in a spreadsheet automatically. Typeform looks nicer, but its free plan caps at 10 responses a month, so it fails as soon as the post works.
Form fields: Collect every application question, the resume upload, an internet speed test screenshot, a typing test screenshot, an audio sample through Vocaroo, video answers through Loom links, and the EF SET result or certificate.
Tools: Vocaroo is free and requires no signup. Typing.com and TypingTest.com work for the typing screenshot. EF SET gives you a free CEFR-mapped English result. Loom supplies the video links.
English bar: Use C1-C2 for customer-facing roles. B1-B2 is acceptable for developers, marketing, and accounting-type roles. Never go lower than B1.
Question one, verbatim: “Tell us about yourself and your previous experience. What do you view as the greatest success of your career so far, and what was the biggest challenge you’ve worked through?”
Question two, verbatim: “Walk us through the tools, languages, frameworks, or systems you’re most familiar with. Then pick one or two and tell us about specific features or capabilities where you feel like a real expert.”
Question three, verbatim: “Walk us through a recent piece of work you’re proud of. What was the problem, what did you build or fix, and what was the outcome?”
Question four, verbatim: “Tell us about the hardest technical problem you’ve solved in the last year. Walk us through how you diagnosed it and got to a solution.”
Adaptation: Those four are a technical-role example. Change the role-specific language for other seats.
Grade: AI grades every row against the slide 5 rubric. Require a score by outcome and competency, quoted evidence from the candidate, and a clear flag wherever proof is missing.
Story: Riff through the candidate experience: speed screenshot, typing result, Vocaroo audio, EF SET result, Loom answers, and resume. The punchline is that you get proof before you spend human time.
Land the number: Typeform stops at 10 responses a month. A post built to attract 200 people needs Google Forms.
Shortcut: If you want to own the plumbing, build it. Eddie’s team runs the form, sheet, grading, and handoff every week, turning that machinery into 3 vetted candidates in 5 days.
Transition: “AI can grade what they submitted. It cannot replace the human pressure that exposes ownership, honesty, and grit.”

Screen | Press for Proof

Human screen. Pressure creates proof.

30-minute screen · last five bosses: 1-10

Grit outside work

4-hour paid test · AI okay, defend thinking

TORC

Candidate-arranged boss calls

Tells

I vs we

Numbers

Spiky

Grower

Red flags

Sub-year jobs

Gaps

Badmouthing

Open: “This call is not a vibe check. It is a controlled search for evidence.”
Method: Credit Who, ask the four screening questions in order, and spend the depth on the most recent roles. The method came from US corporate hiring; Eddie applies the same pressure and proof standard to global talent markets.
Question one: “What are your career goals?”
Question two: “What are you really good at professionally?” Ask for examples.
Question three: “What are you not good at or not interested in doing?”
Question four: “How will your last five bosses rate you, 1 to 10, when we talk to them?” Make “when we talk” feel certain, not hypothetical.
Follow-up: Use “What? How? Tell me more.” Go deepest on the most recent roles. Then ask about the hardest challenge they have overcome outside work. That is where grit was earned.
TORC: Tell candidates at the start that they will arrange calls with recent bosses. Reference check and background check everyone. Weak candidates and resume-liars often remove themselves.
Tells: Look for “I” ownership and numeric outcomes, not “we” answers with no personal contribution. Spiky excellence is useful; the person does not need to be well-rounded.
Career intent: Ask, “Do you want steady and safe, or growing, promoted, taking on new challenges?” Hire the grower for a high-agency seat.
Background: Prefer startup backgrounds over big-company backgrounds. Look for prepared questions, company research, professional presentation, good internet plus a backup, finished assessments, and thinking from all angles.
Red flags: Multiple jobs under a year, gaps between the resume and the story, and badmouthing past employers.
Story: Tell the skipped-reference-check story plainly. Early on, I hired someone without making the call. The person had been fired from the prior job, lied about it, and was working two jobs. One call would have saved the entire hire.
Work test: Always run a paid four-hour work test, pay a couple hundred dollars, and ask for specific outputs. AI use is fine if the candidate can defend the decisions beyond what the AI wrote.
Shortcut: The reference calls, paid test, and replacement risk are machinery Eddie’s team already runs every week. That is the work you can own or hand off.
Transition: “The same clarity you used to screen them has to continue on day one, or you train a high-agency hire to wait.”

Ramp | Make Ownership Normal

Make ownership normal in 30 days

Day one

Access · SOPs · buddy

Week one

Daily · then weekly

EOD

Done · achieved · questions

30/60/90

Numeric scorecard

Team member, not VA

4 weeks: likely for life

2-week killers

Late · repeats · excuses · AI · combative

Open: “A good hire can still become an instruction-waiter if your onboarding teaches them to wait.”
Readiness: If you cannot define success with a number, you are not ready to hire.
Before day one: Write the onboarding plan and a numeric 30/60/90 scorecard. Assign a buddy. Prepare full system, SOP, and training access.
Week one: Give full access on day one. Check in daily, answer questions, and watch whether they take notes. Taper to weekly after the first week.
Great first day: Picture the pattern from your real hires: extra monitor, strong internet, already researched the business, eager, and asking about the career path. Readiness shows up before output does.
EOD: Require three lines: what was done, what was achieved, and what questions remain. They should report without bombarding you all day. The achievement line must describe a result rather than motion.
Days 30/60/90: Review the numbers and use staggered raises to reward performance. The business problem sets the target.
Team treatment: Treat them as a team member, never a disposable VA. These are career-level professionals. Include them in culture and team events, give them a career path, and communicate like you would with a teammate down the street.
Four-week rule: If they succeed through the first four weeks, fit the culture, and work hard, they will likely stay with you for life, especially in Latin America.
Two-week killers: Late arrival, repeat questions, excuses about health, family, power, or internet with no backup, AI regurgitation without critical thinking, and combative responses to feedback. When those patterns show up, Opus rips and replaces within two weeks.
Punchline: Mistakes are normal. The same mistake twice is the signal.
Transition: “When the signal turns bad, delay does not make the conversation kinder. It only makes the damage more expensive.”

Fire | Protect the Team

Fire fast. Protect the team.

Triggers: absences · dishonesty · repeat mistakes · excuses · blame

Fixable

Owned mistake

Asks for help

Skill gap + effort

Fatal

Repeat pattern

Dishonesty

Hidden second job

0160-day probation · aggressive PIP

02Ethics: same-day access cut

03Critical seat: replace behind scenes 1-2 weeks

04Performance firing: no severance

Open: “Firing gets hard when the standard was fuzzy. With a scorecard and daily evidence, you usually already know.”
Triggers: Act on multiple early absences, dishonesty including a hidden second job, the same mistake after repeated instruction, EOD reports full of activity with no accomplishments and excuses, or missed 60/90-day goals paired with blame.
Fixable versus fatal: A new mistake owned quickly is fixable. A bad email or broken process followed by a request for help is fixable. A skill gap paired with effort and improvement is fixable.
Fatal pattern: The same mistake on repeat is fatal. Dishonesty or hidden employment is fatal. Having the person creates more work than removing them.
Probation: Set a 60-day probation and tell them before they start. If they are crushing it at day 60, confirm they passed and consider the planned raise.
Fader: If a strong start begins fading, coach weekly and give real help.
PIP: If performance does not recover, use an aggressive PIP with explicit goals. The math lets them fire themselves.
Rules: Performance firing means no severance. A business-condition layoff is a different conversation. An ethics issue means cut access and end employment the same day.
Critical seat: Hire the replacement behind the scenes and keep the person only 1-2 weeks if the risk is controlled.
Story: Tell the two-jobs firing in sequence. A recruiter promised the world and placed a few people, then went on medical leave early, became cagey, and stopped responding. I learned they were working two jobs and lying.
Punchline: I cut access before they knew they were fired and ended it immediately. Every problem from that hire became a screen for the next one.
Transition: “You now have the full system. Let us take one role from this room and rebuild the market, post, rubric, screen, and ramp live.”

Bring a Role | Rebuild It Live

Bring a role. Rebuild it live.

Market→ post 25% above local→ rubric before names→ form + AI grade→ human screen + TORC→ paid test→ 30/60/90 ramp→ fire fast

5 days

3 vetted candidates

14 days

first call to onboarded

97%

still in seat after one year

Lifetime

replacement guarantee

600,000+

candidates in our system

“We couldn’t even find three people to show up for interviews. Opus just does it all for us.”Jim Vito

A-Player Grader

opus-a-player-assessment.pages.dev

Grade current teammates. Evidence, not vibes. Free browser tool.

Pricing: 20-minute call
ECA $500 off first month

hireopus.com →

Open: “You have the system. Now give me a real role and we will put it to work.”
Live setup: Ask for the role, current market, budget, and the business number the hire must move. Rebuild market, post, rubric, screen, and ramp in that order.
Recap: Read the whole system on one line: market, post 25% above local, rubric before names, form plus AI grade, human screen plus TORC, paid test, 30/60/90 ramp, then fire fast.
DIY route: The DIY route works. It is also a real operating system: rubric, form plumbing, blind AI grading, human screens, reference calls, paid tests, onboarding, and a plan for replacement risk.
Grader: Point people to opus-a-player-assessment.pages.dev. They can grade any current teammate on the last 90 days across ownership, learning, ideas, feedback, team impact, and readiness to lead. It is evidence, not vibes, and it is free in the browser.
Templates: Point people to the templates in the ECA thread as well.
Shortcut: If they want to own every part, they have the playbook. If they want the shortcut, Opus runs this machinery every week: rubric, form plumbing, AI grading, human screens, reference calls, paid tests, onboarding, and replacement-risk protection.
Proof: Opus gets 3 vetted candidates in 5 days, moves from first call to onboarded in 14 days, has 97% still in seat after one year, and includes a lifetime replacement guarantee.
Pool: Opus already has 600,000+ candidates in the system. That is the credibility behind the speed, not a substitute for the screen.
Story: Read Jim Vito’s line: “We couldn’t even find three people to show up for interviews. Opus just does it all for us.” The punchline is relief, not recruiter theater.
Commercial: Pricing happens on a 20-minute call. ECA members get $500 off the first month. The URL is hireopus.com.
Transition: “Who has a role they want to rebuild?” Move directly into the live segment and Q&A.