Hiring the bilingual PMs the budget said it couldn't afford

A Florida market-research firm needed remote project managers fluent in English and willing to work U.S. hours — at 25–50% under what senior talent expected. Prometeo mapped 150,000+ candidates and built a five-country delivery team in an average of 56 days.

150K +

Candidates
mapped

30

Screened &
presented

5

Project managers
hired

56 d

Average
time to hire
The result, plotted

Five hires,
five countries

Project managers placed across Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama — a delivery team spanning U.S.-aligned time zones.

Hired herex · longitude   y · latitude
0° equatorPANAMACOLOMBIAECUADORBRAZILARGENTINA
The engagement, end to end

From a budget-bound brief to a standing partnership

The client wanted up to 20 remote PMs for high-touch global accounts serving brands like PlayStation, Google, and Amazon. Four constraints stood between the vision and the hire.

+25–50%

The salary gap

Senior profiles with the right fluency and industry background expected 25–50% above budget. Strong-on-paper candidates were ruled out on cost alone.

C1 / C2

Fluency, non-negotiable

Daily communication with U.S. clients demanded advanced English. Anything below C1 was a hard stop, not a nice-to-have.

0 syncs

The meeting-averse CTO

Leadership preferred minimal meetings — making timely feedback, fast alignment, and real-time strategy shifts hard to come by.

US hrs

U.S. hours, any time zone

Candidates had to commit to U.S. working hours wherever they were based, narrowing an already-tight pool.
Prometeo ran a phased, insight-driven search — and reframed the brief around what the budget could actually buy.
The pivot

Rather than chase senior profiles priced 25–50% over budget, we educated the client on regional salary bands and sourced fluent, client-ready talent across LATAM — markets where the math, and the skills, lined up.

1

Map the market

We assessed availability across Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and beyond, then calibrated the client's expectations on experience levels, salary bands, and real talent supply.

150K+ databaseLinkedIn mappingsalary calibration
2

Source on fit

We filtered our database and LinkedIn for market-research and analytics experience, weighting English fluency and client-facing communication above all else.

research/analytics exp.C1+ Englishclient-facing
3

Build the trust

With no weekly meetings, we ran the process async on Trello and email. Client Success Lead Lorena engaged the CTO directly — advising on strategy and market dynamics — to unlock the consistent feedback the search needed.

async: Trello + emailCTO relationship

A hybrid team of recruiters and customer-success managers ran sourcing, screening, and logistics around limited client availability.

30
candidates screened & presented across LATAM and beyond
2–3
client interview rounds per finalist
100%
pre-screened for English level & cultural fit

Hiring timeline · Dec 2024 → Mar 2025

Dec 10 '24
Project launched — brief locked, market mapping begins
Jan 3 '25
First hire signed
Jan 21 '25
Second hire signed
Jan 31 '25
Third hire signed
Feb 26 '25
Fourth hire signed
Mar 5 '25
Fifth hire signed
25 of 30 didn't make it

Most fell out for one of three reasons: no market-research background, English below C1, or salary expectations 25–50% over budget — concentrated among senior profiles. Each round of filtering tuned the search to skill and budget.

By March 2025, the delivery team was live — and the engagement had outgrown its original scope.

5/5

Project managers hired, one per country

Live across Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador — all meeting or exceeding expectations on high-value global accounts.

The trust built through Lorena's involvement led the client to open new roles in development and data analytics — turning a one-off search into a standing talent partnership, with Prometeo now advising on strategy as well as recruitment.

What this search taught us

Four insights worth keeping

01

Budget sensitivity needs market education

Aligning targets meant teaching the client how salary expectations move across regions — before sourcing, not after.

02

Fluency is non-negotiable — and costs money

Bilingual professionals within budget demanded creative sourcing and a sharper employer-brand pitch.

03

Communication style shapes strategy

Async tools kept momentum, but a trust-building relationship with the CTO is what kept the project on track.

04

Trust drives growth

A search delivered well became the foundation for broader collaboration — recruitment and strategic talent advice.

One budget-bound search became a standing talent partnership.

Prometeo Talent