How Vela works

Three steps. Three vetted candidates. Senior in 21 days. Junior in 14.

A walkthrough of the full process: intake, headhunting from the right pool, the working-call vetting bar, the shortlist hand-off, and the replacement promise. Same motion across senior and junior tiers, with different sourcing depending on the seat.

The process

Three steps. You only do the part that matters.

The motion is the same whether you are hiring a senior CSM, a senior project manager, or a junior on the bench. The sourcing depth differs, which is why the timelines differ.

01
// Day 0 to Day 1

The intake. Fifteen minutes.

You take a fifteen-minute intake call. We ask the questions: which seat, which vertical, which tools, which scenarios the operator will own in week one, and what has held you back from filling the seat before.

You do not draft a job description. We translate the intake into a structured role brief and send it back for your approval. The brief is the source of truth for every candidate we put in front of you.

Most clients approve the brief in a single Slack reply.

// Time on your side
15 min
// Brief turnaround
24 hours
02
// Day 1 to Day 7

The headhunt. Or the bench.

For senior seats, we headhunt operators currently employed at agencies in your vertical. The outreach goes out the day the brief is approved. We do not post the role on a job board, and we do not send out generic blast messages.

For junior seats, we pull from the active LATAM bench: operators we have already interviewed, scored, and added to the roster. The first vetted profile typically lands in your inbox within seven days regardless of tier.

Every candidate we shortlist has been on a working call with us before they reach you. Not a screening form. An actual conversation about the work.

// First profile
7 days
// Source
Currently employed
03
// Day 7 to Day 21 (senior) · Day 7 to Day 14 (junior)

The shortlist. You interview and choose.

Three vetted candidates land in your inbox by day twenty-one for senior, day fourteen for junior. Each comes with a written brief, the working-call notes, and an agency-context check.

You interview the three on your own cadence. We do not pressure timelines. If none of the three are right, the search continues at no additional cost until you have a fit.

If your first hire does not work out, the replacement search is included for ninety days on senior and sixty days on junior.

// Senior shortlist
21 days
// Junior shortlist
14 days
The bar

Numbers that compound across hires.

Each metric below is enforced in the working call before a candidate makes the shortlist.

8 yrs
Average operator tenure inside agencies before joining the bench.
C1+
English fluency, verified on a live working call. No exceptions.
EST
Time zone overlap. Candidates work US business hours by default.
90 day
Replacement window on senior placements. Sixty days on junior.
The candidates

What an operator on the bench looks like.

Two anonymized profiles from recent placements. The format mirrors what lands in your inbox at the shortlist stage.

// Senior CSM · Cold Email
Eight years inside cold email and lead-gen agencies. Last role managed a $48K MRR book of fifteen agency clients.
LocationMedellín, Colombia
EnglishC1
StackSmartlead, Apollo, Clay, Slack
QBR cadenceWeekly + monthly business review
Salary band$2.4K to $2.8K USD / month
"Most agency owners hire CSMs who can talk to clients. The job is actually keeping deliverability healthy enough that the client never has to ask."
// Junior Project Manager · SMMA
Three years at a full-service shop coordinating timelines across paid, organic, email, and creative for sixteen retainers.
LocationBuenos Aires, Argentina
EnglishC1+
StackClickUp, Notion, Loom, Slack
Account load16 retainers across 4 channels
Salary band$1.4K to $1.8K USD / month
"The mistake most agencies make is letting the senior PM also run the daily standup. That role pays for itself the moment a junior takes over the standup."
The working call

Every candidate sits a vetting call before they reach you.

The call is run by an operator, not a screener. Four scored dimensions, one written summary in the candidate brief.

+

Agency-context fluency

Have they actually run client work in your vertical's tools at another agency, or did they learn the tools in a bootcamp? We probe with a real-world scenario from the brief.

+

English on a live call

Not a written form. Not an audio sample. A live call covering a hypothetical client escalation. C1+ minimum, scored against the seat seniority.

+

Operator-level judgment

Given a real escalation pattern, what would you do first? Second? When would you bring the founder in? Strong candidates frame trade-offs without being asked.

+

Tenure and stability signal

Why are you open to a new seat right now? What was your last QBR? Why did your last role end? Honest answers here predict 90-day retention better than any résumé line.

If it does not work out

The replacement promise is included.

A bad first hire should not cost you a second placement fee. The replacement search starts the day you flag the issue, with no additional fee on either tier.

// Senior
Ninety-day replacement window.

If your senior CSM or senior project manager does not work out within the first ninety days, we run the replacement search at no additional cost. You keep the original brief; we restart sourcing.

// Junior
Sixty-day replacement window.

For junior placements, the replacement window is sixty days. Same motion: you flag, we restart sourcing from the bench, no additional fee.

The most common questions

Asked by every first-time client.

What if the search runs longer than the timeline?

We tell you up front during intake if the brief is tighter than realistic. If the search runs past the stated window, it continues at no additional fee until you have a fit, or until you choose to stop. If no candidates have been delivered and you stop, up to 50% of the deposit is refunded.

Do you ever hand off candidates from a job board?

No. The senior search sources only from operators currently employed at other agencies. The junior search sources from a bench we have already interviewed. Job-board candidates do not enter either pipeline.

Who runs the working call?

An operator who has hired this role at agencies, not a recruiter and not a screener. The notes from that call are part of the candidate brief you receive.

What does the contractor relationship look like after placement?

You hire the operator directly as a contractor. We hand you the contract template and walk you through Deel, Wise, or Payoneer for international payment. You own the relationship from day one.

Can you place outside the four agency verticals?

Sometimes. The bench depth is concentrated in cold email, paid ads, SEO, and SMMA / full-service. If your vertical is adjacent we will tell you up front whether we can credibly source from currently-employed operators.

Ready to begin

Three vetted candidates. One real shortlist.

Tell us the seat. We will reply within 24 hours.

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