I run a real estate company in North Carolina, and some of the sharpest people on my team log in every morning from Latin America. This is the guide I wish someone had handed them years earlier — how to get hired directly by a US company, written by someone who actually does the hiring.
Why you should hear this from a hirer, not a guru
My name is Ryan Smith. I founded Cinch Home Buyers in Cary, North Carolina in 2021. We buy, renovate, and sell homes across the state — more than 250 properties so far — and we already employ remote team members in Latin America: lead managers, VAs, people doing real work on real deals.
I'm not selling you a course. I'm not going to ask you for money at any point — we never charge fees at any stage of hiring, and no legitimate employer does.
What I can give you is the view from the other side of the desk. I read the applications. I sit in the interviews. I sign the payments. Here's how it actually works.
One more thing before we start: this article is in English on purpose. If you're reading it comfortably, you just passed the first screen for every job I'll describe.
The two routes: direct hire vs. the agency route
There are two ways your labor reaches a US company, and the difference is worth hundreds of dollars a month for the rest of your career.
Route one: the agency or BPO route. A call center or staffing agency hires you, then rents you to a US client. It's commonly reported that bilingual agents in Managua earn around $550–670 a month while their employer bills the US client a multiple of that. The spread — often 30–60% of your real market rate, sometimes more — goes to the middleman. Forever. Every month. For as long as you hold the job.
Route two: the direct route. The US company hires you as a contractor. No middleman. The money the client was already willing to pay for your work goes to you. Same skills, same hours, same you — meaningfully more money, plus something agencies almost never give you: a visible path up.
The agency route isn't evil. It's how most people get trained, and that training is valuable. But once you have the skills, staying there means donating your spread to someone else — every payday, indefinitely.
How to find real US employers (and skip the scams)
The hard part isn't the work. It's separating real companies from the "remote closer" guru economy that has burned so many people in your position.
Real employers look like this: a company name you can Google, a physical address, a named founder or hiring manager, reviews from actual customers, a specific role with a specific stated pay, and a written process. If a listing has none of those, close the tab.
Instant disqualifiers: anyone who asks you to pay for training, equipment, "placement," or software before you're hired. Anyone promising $10K/month with no experience. Anyone who won't do a live video interview. A job that charges you money is not a job — you're the customer, and the "job" is the product.
I built a full checklist for this in how to vet a US remote employer. Use it on us too. Seriously — vet me. A real company survives the vetting.
Your resume: one page, US-style, full of numbers
US hiring managers skim. You have maybe thirty seconds, so a US-style resume is one page, in English, and led by numbers.
Your BPO experience is a genuine credential — Concentrix, Teleperformance, Ibex, whoever. But "Customer Service Representative, 2021–2024" tells me almost nothing. This tells me everything:
- Handled 80–100 outbound calls per day on a US sales campaign
- Converted 12% of contacts to booked appointments, top 10% on a team of 40
- Hit or exceeded quota 9 of 12 months
- Maintained 92% QA score across 18 months
You already track these numbers at work, or your team lead does. Get them. Put them at the top. A resume with real metrics beats a resume with beautiful adjectives every single time.
Skip the photo, the birthdate, and the two-page personal history — normal in some countries, but not the US format, and following the US format is itself a signal that you've done your homework.
We’re hiring remote junior salespeople across Latin America right now. $1,000–$1,200/mo USD base + commission, US hours, real promotion ladder. We never charge fees at any stage.
See the Remote Sales RoleTreat the application as your first work sample
Here's the mindset shift that separates the hired from the ghosted: your application is not paperwork. It's the first task your future employer ever gave you.
Did you follow the instructions exactly? If the posting asks for a voice note and you skip it, you just showed me how you'll handle a client's instructions. Did you write three sentences about why this company, or paste the same paragraph you sent to forty others? Did you reply fast?
When I post a role, the applications that get interviews are rarely the most credentialed. They're the ones that read like the person actually did the job of applying: complete, specific, on time, zero typos in a role that requires written English.
The application is the first task I ever give you. Most candidates fail it before I've read a single word about their experience.— Ryan Smith, founder, Cinch Home Buyers
The video interview: what US companies expect
Camera on, always. Test your audio and internet before, not during. A quiet space and decent lighting matter more than you think — for a remote sales role, your setup is literally the product I'm evaluating, because it's what customers will experience too.
Expect direct questions and give direct answers. US interviews reward specifics: "In March I closed 14 upsells" beats "I always try my best." Expect a roleplay if it's a sales seat — they're scoring how you recover, not whether you're perfect. And have questions ready for them; in US culture, no questions reads as no interest.
The interview will be in English, and that's a feature, not an obstacle. It's the fluency screen, done live. I broke down the whole remote interview game — roleplays, follow-ups, timezone signaling — in how to pass a US sales interview from another country.
What a real offer looks like — in writing
When a legitimate US company hires you, you get the terms in writing before you start. Every one of these, specifically:
- Rate: the exact number, the currency (USD), and whether it's monthly or hourly.
- Schedule: the hours and the time zone, stated explicitly (for us, US Eastern).
- Payment rail and cadence: how you get paid — Wise, Payoneer, and Deel are the standard rails — and on what dates.
- Role scope: what you're actually responsible for, and what success looks like.
- Fees: none. Ever. At any stage. If money flows from you to them, walk away.
On paperwork: as a non-US contractor working from your own country, you'll typically sign a W-8BEN, the US company doesn't withhold US taxes, and no visa is involved because the work happens where you live. That's general information, not tax advice — your local obligations are yours to check. More on the money mechanics in getting paid in USD from Latin America.
If a company gets vague on any of these points, that vagueness is the answer.
Real employers pay you. They never charge you — not for training, not for software, not for "processing." Any fee at any stage means it's not a job. There are no exceptions to this rule.
How we run it at Cinch
Since I'm telling you how to judge employers, here's how we hold ourselves to it.
Every application gets a reply within 48 hours — yes or no, but an answer. The interview is in English, live on video, with real people from the team, and for sales roles I'm often in it myself. The founder has a name and a face: mine. The company has an address in Cary, NC, a 4.9-star Google rating from 60+ reviews, and an A+ with the BBB. And we already pay a Latin American team in USD, on time, every time, through the same rails I listed above.
Right now the seat we're hiring for is a Remote Junior Salesperson — Acquisitions & Dispositions: $1,000–$1,200/month USD base plus commission on deals, US Eastern hours, with a visible ladder to bigger deal tiers.
What to do this week
Don't just save this article. Run the play.
- Pull your real numbers from your current or last job — calls per day, conversion, quota, QA scores.
- Rebuild your resume: one page, English, numbers first.
- Pick five real companies — named founders, real addresses — and apply like the application is the job.
- Vet every one of them before you accept anything, including us.
The distance between a $600/month agency seat and a direct US contract is not talent. You already have the talent — the BPO proved it. The distance is knowing the process and refusing to pay a middleman for the introduction. Now you know the process.