Local & expensive to global & affordable

Northstar is a full-service accounting and CFO firm, specializing in the Cannabis, Tech, and Entertainment industries. They turned to Near to hire one bookkeeper. They ended up scaling their entire team.

With over 10 years operating and having assisted more than 250 cannabis clients from launch to scale to success, Northstar has become one of the most respected financial consulting and accounting services firms for companies in the cannabis industry.

Challenge

Northstar faces stiff competition when hiring top U.S. accounting candidates that have the experience and expertise it takes to produce excellent work. Top talent is being courted by the premier accounting and financial services firms (like EY, PWC, and major banks like JP Morgan).

With remote work entering the mainstream and having been limited to local talent in the past, Northstar was open to hiring offshore talent, but didn’t know where to start. Founder Lorenzo decided it was time to find a recruiting partner and platform that could help them find excellent remote talent that worked US time zones, integrated into their work culture, and had the same skills and expertise that top US talent had.

Having dipped their toes into the offshore hiring world in the past, Northstar was well aware of how complicated, expensive, time consuming and ineffective it could be to go through the wrong recruiting channels. They didn’t want to waste money sourcing the wrong candidates who wouldn’t be a great fit in the long run.

For California-based Northstar, time zones and work culture, as well as spoken and written English, are critical. When looking at India for hiring in the past, they were uncomfortable knowing it would be 7pm for their contractors when they were just waking up in the morning. So where would they look for remote talent?

What stood out to us was Near’s personal touch and candidate quality. They understood our problem and solved our hiring needs.

<div class="quote-signature">Lorenzo, CEO & Founder of Northstar Financial Consulting Group</div>

Solution

Northstar turned to Near to provide the platform and expertise necessary to identify, evaluate & hire excellent remote talent from Latin America. Why Latin America? Similar time zones, compatible work cultures, and affordable salaries. After connecting over a cold reach out email, CEO Lorenzo chose Near for the company’s reputation of excellent customer support, affordable fees, large database of vetted English-speaking candidates, reliability, and expertise in the remote-hiring game. 

Near’s intuitive and easy-to-use platform made it simple for Northstar to quickly filter through applications and identify the best fits for their interview process. Moreover, Near differentiated itself from other remote hiring solutions by pre-screening candidates using their expert knowledge of the LatAm market and the accounting/finance niche.

Results

‍By partnering with Near, Northstar has hired 12 candidates across finance, accounting, operations, and admin to scale their remote team in a short time frame without breaking the bank. They’ve saved over $500k (up to 70% per new hire) and do not have to worry about retention in the age of the Great Resignation — their hires from LatAm are making 2-4x as much as they’d be able to at home. Northstar’s leadership team relies on Near to continue finding talent as their business has doubled in size in the 12 months since starting with Near.