From first request to first hire: what a Sprint Labs engagement really looks like

The short answer: you tell us the role, we scope it with you, we source and vet candidates and send you a shortlist of profiles, you interview and choose, we handle the employment contract and compliance in-market, and the person starts as a dedicated member of your team. From there we run payroll, benefits, and local HR, and you manage the work. One monthly fee per person covers the lot.

Stage 1 — The request

It starts with a role, not a contract. You submit a request describing the position: job title, what the person will actually do, the skills that matter, the seniority you need, your budget range, and the hours or overlap required. If you are not sure how to describe it, that is a normal starting point — most companies are hiring their first offshore person and do not yet know what the market offers.

What helps most at this stage: a realistic picture of the week-to-week work, the tools involved, and who the person will report to.

Stage 2 — Scoping and market advice

We come back with the parts you cannot easily research: which markets have the right depth of talent for this role, realistic salary bands in local currency, statutory costs that sit on top of salary, and any employment considerations specific to that country. Sometimes this conversation changes the role — a job that is expensive to fill in one market is straightforward in another.

If the budget and the market do not match, we say so at this point rather than three weeks into a search.

Stage 3 — Sourcing and vetting

We source against the agreed brief and screen candidates before you ever see them. Screening covers technical or functional capability, English communication in the form the role actually needs, motivation and stability, and availability against your required hours.

You then receive a shortlist of branded candidate profiles: background, experience, assessed strengths, and fit against your brief. You are choosing between named people, and you can reject the shortlist and ask for a different angle.

Stage 4 — Your interviews

You interview the candidates yourself. This is not optional in our model — the person is going to work inside your team, so the hiring decision has to be yours. We help by coordinating scheduling across time zones, suggesting assessment approaches that work in the local market, and giving you honest feedback on how a candidate compares to the pool.

Stage 5 — Quote and agreements

Once you select someone, you receive a quote with the monthly cost per person set out clearly. Two documents follow: a master services agreement covering the relationship overall, and a statement of work covering the specific role or roles. Both are signed digitally in your portal, and billing only begins once they are in place.

Stage	Who does it	Typical time
Request and scoping	You and us	A few days
Sourcing and vetting	Us	1–3 weeks depending on the role
Interviews and selection	You	1–2 weeks
Quote, MSA and SOW	You and us	Days
Employment contract and onboarding	Us	Aligned to notice period

Notice periods are usually the longest single variable — a candidate currently employed elsewhere may owe their employer a month.

Stage 6 — Employment and onboarding

We issue a compliant local employment contract, register the employee for statutory contributions, and set up payroll in their currency. On your side, onboarding looks like any other hire: accounts, equipment or access, a buddy, and a written 30/60/90 plan. The single biggest predictor of a good first quarter is whether that plan exists on day one.

Stage 7 — Ongoing management

From then on the split is simple. You direct the work: priorities, feedback, performance, growth. We handle employment: payroll on time, statutory contributions, leave administration, benefits, local HR support, and regular check-ins with the employee so problems surface early. You see everything — team, documents, invoices, leave — in one portal.

Scaling up means adding a line to the existing agreement rather than starting again. Scaling down is governed by the notice terms in your SOW.

What we need from you to make it fast

The engagements that move quickest share the same three characteristics, and none of them are about budget.

• A decision-maker who is available. Interview slots booked within a few days of a shortlist landing is the single biggest accelerator. Strong candidates are usually in more than one process.
• An honest description of the work. Not the idealised role — the actual week, including the unglamorous parts. Candidates who join with accurate expectations stay.
• Clear success criteria for the first 90 days. If we know what good looks like, we can screen for it. If nobody knows, no shortlist will feel right.

What you see in the portal

Everything in the engagement lives in one place rather than in an email thread: your requests and their status, candidate shortlists and profiles, quotes, signed agreements, your active team with each person’s role and assignment, leave requests and balances, and your invoices. Team members can be given scoped access, so a hiring manager can review candidates without seeing commercial detail.

Adding roles later

Growing an existing engagement is deliberately lighter than starting one. A new role is a new request against the agreement you already have; the successful hire is added to your existing billing rather than set up from scratch. Most of our customers start with one person, and the second and third hires happen considerably faster than the first because the brief, the process, and the working model are already proven.

Common questions

How long does it take to get someone started?

Commonly four to eight weeks from request to start date, driven mostly by role difficulty, how fast interviews are scheduled, and the successful candidate’s notice period. Specialist senior roles take longer; well-defined support and operations roles are usually at the faster end.

Do I choose the person, or are they assigned?

You choose. We shortlist and advise, you interview and decide. If nobody on the shortlist is right, we go back and source again.

What exactly is included in the monthly fee?

The employee’s salary and statutory employer costs, compliant employment and payroll, benefits administration, local HR support, and our management. It is a single monthly figure per person, in a currency agreed at quote.

What happens if it does not work out?

Tell us early — most issues are context or management problems that are fixable within weeks. If it is a genuine mismatch, we manage the exit properly under local law and restart sourcing under the terms in your agreement.

Can I hire the person directly later?

That conversation is welcome rather than forbidden. The terms depend on your agreement, so raise it early if permanent direct employment is your end goal.

Do I need an entity in their country?

No. We employ the person in-market, which is the entire point of a managed model. See managed employment, explained for how this compares with an EOR or your own entity.

What this means for your team

If you know the role, the rest is process. Send us the position you are trying to fill and we will come back with the market, the realistic band, and a timeline before you commit to anything.