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Every recruitment business owner who's ever pulled a freelance role in a new country has done the same thing, jumped straight to the margin calculator and started dreaming. Very few have stopped to ask whether they can actually get the money in and out.
In this episode, Jamie Burrows sits down with Carl Chinnapen, co-founder of EWI Global Talent Solutions, to break down the four pillars behind building an international freelance recruitment business. Carl has spent 25 years in recruitment and runs EWI's international freelance operation mobilising staff to over 100 countries across energy, infrastructure, and mission-critical sectors. EWI sits at around 80 people globally, part of the Engage Group, and Carl's built the playbook for how it actually works at scale.
He starts with cash, the thing most firms get wrong first. Clients paying in 90 to 150 days, FX exposure eating your margin, banking restrictions you didn't know existed. He's watched recruitment businesses choke because they put out 100 contractors without thinking about who's going to pay them and when. From there he gets into the business plan staying ruthlessly focused on specific clients and markets, hiring for language and local market fit, co-designing business rules with the team rather than dictating them, and keeping recruiters in their lane so they're selling, not chasing purchase orders in Argentina. He talks about EWI's "win, learn, change" mantra and why you can't let a failing desk run for months when the cash exposure is this real. And he makes the case for finding a mentor the industry's shifted, senior operators are more open than ever, and tapping into that network before you enter a new market will save you from mistakes you didn't know were coming.
The upside is where it gets interesting. Freelance turnover makes clients stickier, opens the door to cross-selling perm and new locations, and makes your business worth significantly more than a pure-play perm operation where the consultant leaves and the fees leave with them.
If international freelance is on your agenda, this is the episode that tells you what most people skip. Follow Amplifying Recruitment wherever you get your podcasts.
