Choosing between South and Goodwin Recruiting comes down to a bigger question than which recruiting agency has the better service: where do you want your next hire to come from?
Both companies help employers find qualified candidates, but their hiring models serve different needs. Goodwin Recruiting has built its business around U.S. recruiting, professional staffing, industry-specific talent acquisition, and executive search. South focuses on helping U.S. companies find and hire full-time remote talent across Latin America.
That difference matters when you're deciding how to expand your talent pool. A company hiring for a location-dependent role in the U.S. may value a traditional staffing agency with domestic recruiting coverage. A company hiring remote professionals in engineering, finance, marketing, sales, support, or operations may find that nearshore hiring in Latin America opens up a much larger pool of candidates while keeping teams in similar time zones.
The best choice depends on the role, location requirements, budget, and the type of team you're building.
In this South vs. Goodwin Recruiting comparison, we'll look at their recruiting models, talent markets, roles, screening processes, hiring costs, remote-work fit, and executive recruiting capabilities so you can decide which hiring partner makes the most sense for your company in 2026.
South vs. Goodwin Recruiting at a Glance
South and Goodwin Recruiting both help companies find qualified talent, but they solve different hiring problems.
South is built for companies that want to hire remote professionals in Latin America, while Goodwin Recruiting is better known for U.S.-based professional recruiting, executive search, and industry-specific hiring.
Here’s the quick comparison:
The biggest distinction is simple: South expands your hiring market, while Goodwin Recruiting helps you navigate the U.S. talent market.
If your company is looking for remote professionals and wants to explore nearshore staffing, LATAM recruitment, or international hiring, South gives you access to candidates across Latin America without pushing collaboration into distant time zones.
If you're hiring for a U.S.-based position, particularly one that requires local industry knowledge, on-site work, or executive-level recruiting, Goodwin Recruiting may be the more natural fit.
Next, we'll look more closely at the difference that shapes almost every other part of the comparison: where each company helps you hire.
The Biggest Difference: Where You Want to Hire
The clearest difference between South and Goodwin Recruiting is geographic. South helps U.S. companies expand their talent search into Latin America, while Goodwin Recruiting has built a nationwide recruiting network across the United States.
That distinction affects everything from salary expectations and candidate availability to time-zone coverage and whether a role can be performed remotely.
South Focuses on Latin American Talent
South connects U.S. companies with vetted professionals across Latin America. Its talent network covers roles in engineering, finance, sales, marketing, operations, customer support, and other remote-friendly functions. South says its recruiting network includes more than 120,000 professionals across the region.
For companies open to nearshore hiring, that creates an opportunity to search beyond expensive U.S. talent markets without moving work to the other side of the world.
Latin America has another practical advantage: working hours. Many professionals throughout the region can collaborate with U.S. teams in real time, making LATAM recruitment particularly attractive for roles that involve frequent meetings, customer interactions, or close collaboration with internal teams.
South also supports the employment side of international hiring when companies need it. Through its Employer of Record service, businesses can hire LATAM employees without establishing a local entity, while South manages contracts, payroll, benefits, taxes, and compliance.
Goodwin Recruiting Focuses on the U.S. Market
Goodwin Recruiting takes a more domestic approach. The company describes itself as a coast-to-coast recruiting agency serving the entire United States, with recruiters working in local markets nationwide.
That national coverage can be especially useful when location matters.
A restaurant hiring a general manager in Dallas, a construction company searching for a project manager in Phoenix, or a healthcare organization filling a local leadership position may need candidates who already live in the area or can relocate there. Goodwin's network is designed around that kind of U.S. recruitment and local candidate sourcing.
Its geographic reach also spans a wide range of specialties, including hospitality, accounting and finance, IT, engineering, construction, HR, healthcare, legal, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and executive search.
Geography Changes the Hiring Equation
This means the South vs. Goodwin Recruiting decision often starts before you compare individual services.
If a position needs to be filled locally in the United States, Goodwin Recruiting's domestic recruiter network can be a strong fit.
If the position can be performed remotely, expanding the search to Latin America gives employers access to a different talent market altogether. That's where South's focus on remote hiring in Latin America, time-zone alignment, and international employment support becomes more relevant.
The next question is how each company actually structures the recruiting process.
Hiring Models and Recruiting Services
Geography tells you where each company recruits. The hiring model tells you what happens once you decide to work with them.
South takes a more hands-on approach to LATAM recruitment, combining talent sourcing and vetting with the infrastructure companies may need to hire and pay remote professionals. Goodwin Recruiting operates more like a traditional recruiting firm, offering several search models depending on how specialized or urgent the position is.
How Hiring Through South Works
South is designed to take much of the recruiting workload off an internal hiring team.
The process starts with understanding the position, team, tools, experience level, and qualities you want. South then sources candidates from its network of more than 120,000 Latin American professionals and screens them before presenting a shortlist. Its vetting process can include English verification, technical and behavioral interviews, work samples, and reference checks.
Instead of sorting through hundreds of applications, employers typically receive a smaller group of finalists that already match the core requirements.
South can also support what happens after the offer. Depending on the arrangement, the company can handle contracts, payroll, compliance, and other employment administration. Its Employer of Record service lets businesses employ professionals in Latin America without establishing a local legal entity.
That makes South closer to a full-service LATAM hiring partner than a recruiting agency that simply introduces candidates.
How Goodwin Recruiting Works
Goodwin Recruiting gives employers several ways to structure a talent search.
Its services include:
- Contingent recruiting, where the employer pays when it hires a candidate presented by Goodwin.
- Retained search, which gives the search priority and is commonly used when a position requires a more dedicated recruiting effort.
- Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) for employers that want additional recruiting support integrated into their broader hiring process.
Goodwin's recruiters source both active and passive candidates using multiple recruiting channels and a proprietary candidate database built over more than two decades. Candidates then go through screening and interviews before they're matched with employers.
This structure gives companies flexibility. A business filling an individual professional role may use a contingent search, while a difficult leadership position may require a retained or executive search.
Two Different Ways to Solve a Hiring Problem
The practical distinction is how much of the hiring relationship you want one provider to cover.
Goodwin Recruiting primarily helps you find the person. South can help you find the person and manage the cross-border employment infrastructure around that hire.
For a company that already has its U.S. payroll, legal entities, and HR processes in place, a conventional recruiting model may be exactly what's needed.
For a company pursuing remote hiring in Latin America, combining candidate sourcing, vetting, payroll, contracts, and compliance under one hiring partner can simplify the process considerably.
Next, the comparison gets more specific: what kinds of roles and industries can you actually hire for through each company?
Roles and Industries You Can Hire For
South and Goodwin Recruiting overlap in some professional roles, but their strongest use cases look different.
South is a better fit for remote-friendly functions you can hire across Latin America, while Goodwin Recruiting covers a broader mix of U.S.-based professional, operational, and industry-specific positions.
Roles Companies Commonly Hire Through South
South helps companies hire across functions that work well in distributed teams.
Common areas include:
- Engineering and IT: software developers, QA engineers, DevOps professionals, data engineers, and technical support specialists
- Finance and accounting: accountants, bookkeepers, financial analysts, payroll specialists, and controllers
- Sales: SDRs, account executives, sales operations professionals, and revenue analysts
- Marketing: SEO specialists, content marketers, paid media specialists, email marketers, and marketing operations professionals
- Customer support and success: support representatives, customer success managers, onboarding specialists, and implementation professionals
- Operations and administration: executive assistants, operations specialists, project coordinators, and virtual assistants
- Product and design: product managers, UX/UI designers, product designers, and researchers
These roles are particularly well suited to remote hiring in Latin America because the work can usually be performed digitally and often requires ongoing collaboration with U.S.-based teams.
Hiring across LATAM also gives companies access to professionals with experience working with North American businesses, strong English skills, and overlapping work hours with the U.S.
Goodwin Recruiting Covers a Broader Mix of Industries
Goodwin Recruiting works across a wide range of industries, including hospitality, construction, accounting and finance, healthcare, IT, engineering, HR, legal, sales, marketing, manufacturing, and education.
That broader industry reach matters when a role is tied closely to a physical location or sector.
For example, Goodwin Recruiting may be a natural option for hiring:
- Restaurant and hospitality managers
- Construction and engineering professionals
- Healthcare leaders
- Manufacturing employees
- Local finance and accounting professionals
- HR and legal specialists
- Sales leaders
- Executive-level candidates
Some of these roles can be remote, but many are connected to a specific city, office, facility, or business operation.
Remote-Friendly Roles vs. Location-Dependent Roles
A useful way to compare the two companies is to ask whether the position needs to be physically close to the business.
If you're hiring a remote software engineer, financial analyst, marketer, customer support specialist, or operations professional, expanding the search through Latin America recruitment can give you access to a much broader talent pool.
If you're filling a general manager position at a hotel, a construction leadership role, or another job that requires someone to be on-site in the U.S., Goodwin Recruiting's local recruiting network becomes more relevant.
That's why the role itself often determines which hiring partner makes the most sense before pricing, screening, or recruiting fees even enter the conversation.
Talent Pool and Candidate Access
A recruiting partner is only as useful as the talent pool it can actually reach.
South and Goodwin Recruiting approach candidate access from different directions. South expands the search into Latin America, while Goodwin Recruiting relies on its U.S. recruiter network and established domestic candidate database.
South Gives Companies Access to LATAM Talent
One of South's biggest advantages is geographic expansion.
Instead of competing only for candidates in major U.S. hiring markets, companies can search across countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and other parts of Latin America.
That matters when you're hiring for competitive remote roles in engineering, finance, marketing, sales, customer support, and operations.
A broader LATAM talent pool can give employers more flexibility around:
- Seniority and experience
- Salary budgets
- Technical skills
- Industry background
- English proficiency
- Time-zone coverage
South also focuses specifically on professionals who are a fit for remote work with U.S. companies. That makes candidate access more targeted than simply opening a job posting internationally.
For businesses exploring nearshore hiring, the value is less about receiving more applications and more about reaching qualified people they probably wouldn't find through a U.S.-only search.
Goodwin Recruiting Draws From a U.S. Recruiting Network
Goodwin Recruiting takes a different approach.
Its recruiters work across U.S. markets and industries, giving employers access to candidates who may already be established in the location or sector where they're hiring.
That can be especially valuable for sourcing passive candidates. The strongest candidate for a specialized or leadership role may not be actively applying to jobs, so an experienced recruiter can use existing relationships, databases, referrals, and direct outreach to find them.
Goodwin's model can therefore be useful when the search depends on:
- Local market knowledge
- Specific industry experience
- Existing U.S. work authorization
- Geographic proximity
- Executive or management experience
- Access to passive candidates
For a company hiring a specialized U.S. professional, that kind of recruiter network can be more valuable than simply increasing applicants.
A Larger Talent Pool Doesn't Always Mean a Better One
The real question isn't which company has access to more people. It's which talent pool matches the role you're trying to fill.
For a remote position, limiting the search to one U.S. metro area can unnecessarily shrink the candidate pool. Opening the role to Latin America can create more options while preserving real-time collaboration with U.S. teams.
For an on-site or highly localized position, a nationwide U.S. recruiting agency with market-specific recruiters may offer better access to candidates.
That difference also shapes how each company evaluates candidates, which brings us to the next part of the comparison: screening and vetting.
Candidate Screening and Vetting
Finding candidates is only half the job. The next question is whether those candidates are actually worth interviewing.
South and Goodwin Recruiting both screen talent before presenting candidates to employers, but their vetting processes reflect the markets they serve. South puts additional emphasis on remote readiness and English communication for LATAM hires, while Goodwin Recruiting leans on recruiter expertise and industry-specific matching.
How South Screens LATAM Candidates
South pre-vets candidates before introducing them to clients, helping hiring teams spend their time interviewing people who already meet the core requirements.
Depending on the role, screening can evaluate:
- Relevant professional experience
- Role-specific or technical skills
- English proficiency
- Communication skills
- Experience working remotely
- Availability and time-zone alignment
- Team and cultural fit
- Salary expectations
Those criteria are particularly important for international hiring. A candidate can have excellent technical credentials and still struggle in a role that requires daily communication with a U.S. team.
South's focus on remote LATAM talent means employers can evaluate candidates with cross-border collaboration in mind from the beginning.
The result is a more curated shortlist, not a large stack of résumés the internal hiring team still has to sort through.
How Goodwin Recruiting Screens Candidates
Goodwin Recruiting uses its recruiters to assess candidates before presenting them to employers.
Because Goodwin recruits across many industries, its screening process can place greater weight on factors such as:
- Industry experience
- Career history
- Role-specific qualifications
- Leadership experience
- Geographic requirements
- Compensation expectations
- Company and team fit
That industry specialization can be valuable when a hiring manager needs someone with a very specific background.
For example, screening a restaurant general manager requires a different understanding of the role than evaluating a finance director, construction project manager, or software professional. Recruiters familiar with those markets can help determine which experience actually matters.
Where the Screening Priorities Differ
The distinction becomes clearer when you look at what each recruiter needs to verify.
Neither approach is automatically stronger; they're screening for different hiring environments.
For a fully remote employee joining a distributed U.S. team, communication, English proficiency, and real-time availability can matter as much as technical ability.
For an on-site U.S. position, local experience, industry connections, and market familiarity may carry more weight.
Once you've found and vetted the right candidate, the next major difference becomes financial: what does each hiring model mean for your overall cost of hiring?
Cost and Hiring Economics
Recruiting fees matter, but they’re only part of the hiring equation.
The bigger cost difference between South and Goodwin Recruiting comes from where the employee will be hired and what salary market you’ll be competing in. South gives companies access to Latin American compensation levels, while Goodwin Recruiting generally helps employers compete within the U.S. labor market.
The Economics of Hiring Through South
Hiring through South can affect both recruiting costs and the ongoing cost of employing someone.
Salaries for skilled professionals in Latin America are often lower than equivalent U.S. salaries because compensation reflects local labor markets and cost-of-living conditions. That can create meaningful savings for employers while still allowing them to offer competitive local compensation.
The opportunity is especially noticeable in remote-friendly functions such as:
- Software development
- Finance and accounting
- Marketing
- Sales
- Customer support
- Operations
- Product and design
For example, a U.S. company searching for a senior developer or financial analyst may find qualified candidates in Latin America whose salary expectations are considerably below those of equivalent professionals in New York, San Francisco, or other expensive U.S. hiring markets.
That makes LATAM hiring costs relevant beyond the initial recruiting fee. The savings can continue every month the person remains on the team.
South can also consolidate parts of the international hiring process, including recruitment and, when needed, Employer of Record services. That can simplify the administrative side of cross-border hiring for companies without entities in Latin America.
The Economics of Hiring Through Goodwin Recruiting
Goodwin Recruiting operates much closer to the traditional U.S. recruiting model.
Employers typically engage the company to help identify, attract, and evaluate candidates for positions they already plan to fill within the U.S. market. Depending on the search, that may involve contingent recruiting, retained search, executive recruiting, or another recruitment arrangement.
Goodwin Recruiting doesn't publish one universal fee that applies to every employer and position, so the exact recruiting cost depends on the engagement.
The larger financial consideration is that the employee's salary still reflects U.S. market rates.
For a difficult-to-fill position, that can still make economic sense. A recruiting fee may be worthwhile if it helps a company fill a critical role faster, reach passive candidates, or avoid months of internal searching.
Recruiting Cost vs. Total Employment Cost
This is where comparing the two models gets more useful.
The difference is important because the cheapest recruiter doesn't necessarily produce the lowest-cost hire.
A company might pay a reasonable recruiting fee for either service, but a remote professional hired from Latin America can change the position's long-term cost structure.
For that reason, companies comparing nearshore staffing vs. U.S. recruiting agencies should look beyond placement fees and calculate total annual employment costs, including salary, benefits, payroll administration, and recruiting expenses.
If your priority is gaining access to specialized U.S. candidates, Goodwin Recruiting may justify the investment. If you're trying to expand the talent pool while improving hiring economics, South's LATAM-focused model creates a different kind of cost advantage.
Speed and Ease of Hiring
A recruiting partner should do more than expand your candidate pool. It should also reduce the amount of time your team spends sourcing, screening, and coordinating interviews.
South and Goodwin Recruiting can both make hiring easier, but the process looks different because South focuses on remote LATAM hiring, while Goodwin Recruiting works across a much broader mix of U.S. roles and search types.
Hiring Through South
With South, employers don't have to start from a blank job board search.
South handles candidate sourcing and initial vetting, then presents a shortlist of professionals who already match the role's core requirements. That can cut down on one of the most time-consuming parts of remote recruitment: reviewing large numbers of applications that aren't a strong fit.
The process is especially useful for companies hiring across several remote-friendly functions, such as engineering, finance, sales, marketing, operations, and customer support.
Because South focuses on Latin American talent, it can also remove some of the friction that comes with expanding into an unfamiliar international hiring market. Employers don't have to build their own sourcing network in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, or other LATAM countries before they can start interviewing candidates.
When a company needs an Employer of Record, recruiting and employment administration can stay within the same hiring ecosystem rather than being split across several providers.
Hiring Through Goodwin Recruiting
Goodwin Recruiting also reduces the workload on internal hiring teams by managing sourcing, outreach, screening, and candidate presentation.
The recruiting timeline can vary more widely based on the type of search.
A relatively common professional position handled through contingent recruiting may follow a straightforward process. A highly specialized executive or retained search may require deeper market research, targeted outreach, and more extensive candidate evaluation.
That flexibility helps employers that need U.S. recruitment support across different levels of seniority and industries.
Goodwin's recruiters can also reach passive candidates who may never respond to a conventional job posting. For hard-to-fill positions, that can save employers from repeatedly advertising the same role and hoping the right applicant eventually appears.
Which Model Creates Less Hiring Friction?
For a remote position, South can simplify the jump from a U.S.-only search to a LATAM talent strategy. One process can handle candidate sourcing, screening, time-zone considerations, and international employment support.
Goodwin Recruiting may create less friction when the challenge is finding someone within a specific U.S. market, industry, or seniority level.
The right choice depends on what is slowing your hiring process.
If the problem is a small or expensive U.S. talent pool, expanding into Latin America can quickly open new options.
If the problem is finding a highly specialized candidate in a particular U.S. market, working with an experienced domestic recruiter may be the more efficient route.
Speed comes from searching in the right market with the right recruiting model—not simply from moving faster through the same candidate pool.
Remote and Distributed Team Fit
The way your team works should influence the recruiting partner you choose.
If your company is already remote or distributed, South’s LATAM-focused model fits naturally. If the role needs someone physically present in a U.S. office, facility, restaurant, hospital, or job site, Goodwin Recruiting’s domestic network may be more useful.
South for Remote-First and Distributed Companies
South is built around roles that can be performed remotely.
That makes it a strong fit for companies that already have employees working across different cities, states, or countries and want to expand their team without limiting the search to one local labor market.
A major advantage is time-zone alignment.
Many professionals across Latin America work within the same or similar time zones as teams in the U.S. That makes it easier to maintain:
- Real-time meetings
- Daily standups
- Customer-facing coverage
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Fast feedback loops
- Overlapping working hours
For companies comparing nearshore vs. offshore hiring, this distinction can matter. Hiring someone several time zones away may create longer handoffs and fewer overlapping hours, while LATAM talent can often work alongside U.S. teams throughout most of the day.
South also focuses on candidates who are prepared for remote collaboration, which is especially important for roles in engineering, finance, marketing, sales, operations, customer support, and product.
Goodwin Recruiting for Location-Specific Hiring
Goodwin Recruiting serves both remote and on-site hiring needs, but its nationwide U.S. network becomes particularly valuable when location is part of the job requirement.
Some positions simply need someone on the ground.
A hospitality manager may need to be at a specific property. A construction professional may need to oversee a project site. A healthcare leader may need to work within a particular facility or regional operation.
In those situations, international searches offer limited value because the candidate still needs to be located near the job.
Goodwin Recruiting’s domestic model is better suited to searches where employers care about factors such as:
- Proximity to a specific office or facility
- Knowledge of a local market
- U.S.-based industry relationships
- Regional experience
- Willingness to relocate
- On-site availability
Which Is Better for a Distributed Team?
For a company building a remote workforce, South has the more specialized model. Its recruiting process is centered on finding professionals who can join U.S. teams from Latin America and collaborate during overlapping business hours.
Goodwin Recruiting becomes more relevant when a company needs a combination of remote, hybrid, and on-site employees across U.S. locations.
The distinction comes down to how much geography actually matters to the role.
If the work can happen from anywhere, South lets you turn “anywhere” into a much larger talent market. If the work needs to happen somewhere specific, Goodwin Recruiting’s U.S. coverage can be the stronger advantage.
Executive and Leadership Hiring
Executive hiring is one area where the difference between South and Goodwin Recruiting becomes especially clear.
Goodwin Recruiting has a dedicated executive search practice built for C-suite, VP, and senior leadership roles in the U.S. South can also help companies hire experienced senior professionals in Latin America, but its model is broader and more focused on building remote teams across functions.
Goodwin Recruiting for Executive Search
Goodwin Recruiting offers dedicated executive search and retained search services for companies hiring senior leaders.
Its executive recruiting practice covers areas such as finance, technology, healthcare, construction, hospitality, education, private equity, and sales and marketing. Goodwin lists roles including CFO, COO, CTO, CIO, CHRO, Chief Product Officer, VP of Product Management, and other senior positions among the searches it supports.
For especially important leadership hires, Goodwin's retained search model provides a more focused process. The firm emphasizes targeted outreach to passive candidates, deeper assessment, and alignment around the company's culture, goals, and leadership requirements.
That makes Goodwin particularly relevant when you're looking for a U.S.-based executive, filling a confidential leadership vacancy, or searching for someone with deep experience in a specific domestic industry.
South for Senior Remote Talent in Latin America
South approaches senior hiring from the perspective of building distributed teams in Latin America.
Its network includes experienced professionals across finance, engineering, operations, marketing, sales, recruiting, and customer success. South screens candidates for professional experience, English communication, technical or functional ability, and their ability to work effectively with U.S. teams.
That can make South a strong option when a company needs senior talent, but the position doesn't have to be based in the U.S.
For example, a company might use South to recruit a:
- Senior engineering leader
- Finance or accounting manager
- Head of customer success
- Senior operations professional
- Marketing leader
- Product leader
- Recruiting or People Operations leader
The advantage is that employers can expand the leadership search into the Latin American talent market while maintaining significant overlap in working hours with U.S. teams.
Which Is Better for Leadership Hiring?
The answer depends heavily on what you mean by "leadership."
If you're conducting a formal C-suite or executive search in the U.S., Goodwin Recruiting has a purpose-built retained search offering and a dedicated executive recruiting practice.
If you're building out the management layer of a remote team and are open to hiring internationally, South gives you access to experienced professionals across Latin America without limiting the search to U.S. compensation markets.
Goodwin is stronger for traditional U.S. executive search. South becomes more compelling when seniority matters, but geography doesn't.
That distinction is another reason these two recruiting companies aren't direct substitutes in every hiring scenario.
South vs. Goodwin Recruiting: Pros and Considerations
By this point, the pattern is pretty clear: South and Goodwin Recruiting are strongest in different hiring situations.
South is built around expanding remote hiring into Latin America. Goodwin Recruiting focuses on helping employers find professional and executive talent across the U.S.
Here’s how the main tradeoffs compare:
Where South Stands Out
South’s biggest strength is that it changes the hiring market entirely.
Instead of helping a company compete harder for the same U.S. candidates, South opens the search to remote talent across Latin America.
That can be particularly valuable for companies that want:
- Access to a broader talent pool
- Lower total employment costs
- Strong U.S. time-zone overlap
- Pre-vetted remote professionals
- Support with international hiring
- EOR services when needed
- One partner for sourcing and employment administration
For businesses already comfortable with distributed work, that can make nearshore hiring a practical alternative to continuing to recruit exclusively in the U.S.
Where Goodwin Recruiting Stands Out
Goodwin Recruiting’s advantage is depth within the U.S. market.
Its nationwide recruiter network, industry specialization, and executive search capabilities make it well-suited to roles where location, sector experience, or seniority are central to the search.
That can include:
- On-site management positions
- Specialized industry roles
- Local market hires
- Senior leadership positions
- Executive searches
- Hard-to-reach passive candidates
For companies that need someone in a particular U.S. market, a domestic recruiting firm can offer knowledge and candidate relationships that an international hiring model can’t replace.
The Main Tradeoff
The most important question is whether you want to optimize your search within the U.S. market or expand beyond it.
Goodwin Recruiting can help companies navigate the U.S. talent market more effectively.
South gives companies another option: hire skilled professionals from Latin America and build a remote team from a much larger geographic talent pool.
That distinction makes the next part of the comparison easier: when does South make more sense?
When South Is the Better Fit
South makes the most sense when your hiring strategy is location-flexible and focused on building a strong remote team.
If the role can be performed from anywhere, there may be little reason to restrict the search to the U.S. talent market. Opening the position to Latin America can give you access to more candidates, different salary benchmarks, and professionals who can still work closely with your U.S. team.
South is particularly well suited for companies that want to:
- Build a remote team in Latin America. South focuses specifically on sourcing professionals across LATAM for U.S. companies.
- Reduce total hiring costs. LATAM salaries are often more competitive than U.S. compensation for comparable remote roles, creating ongoing savings beyond the initial recruiting process.
- Keep teams working in similar time zones. Nearshore hiring makes it easier to schedule meetings, collaborate in real time, and maintain normal working-hour overlap.
- Hire across several remote-friendly departments. South supports roles in engineering, finance, marketing, sales, operations, customer support, product, design, and other functions.
- Avoid building an international recruiting network from scratch. Companies can access pre-vetted LATAM candidates without learning each local talent market independently.
- Get help with cross-border employment. South can provide Employer of Record services when a company needs support with payroll, contracts, compliance, and local employment administration.
- Scale without committing to a large traditional staffing contract. The model can work for companies making a single strategic hire or gradually building out an entire distributed team.
South can be especially compelling when a company has already tried hiring locally and keeps running into the same problems: high salary expectations, small candidate pools, long searches, or intense competition for experienced professionals.
Rather than continuing to compete in the same market, nearshore recruitment gives the company a different talent pool to draw from.
For example, a U.S. software company struggling to hire three experienced engineers domestically could expand the search into Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, or other LATAM markets. A finance team could do the same for accountants, analysts, or payroll specialists. A growing SaaS company could build customer support, sales, and operations teams across the region while maintaining significant overlap with U.S. business hours.
In those situations, South isn't simply an alternative recruiting agency. It's an alternative hiring strategy.
The next question is the reverse: when does Goodwin Recruiting make more sense?
When Goodwin Recruiting Is the Better Fit
Goodwin Recruiting is a stronger choice when the role needs to be filled within the U.S. market or when industry specialization and local candidate access matter more than international hiring flexibility.
Goodwin Recruiting is particularly well suited for companies that need:
- U.S.-based professionals. Goodwin’s recruiter network is built around domestic hiring across markets nationwide.
- On-site or location-dependent employees. Roles in hospitality, construction, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries often require physical presence.
- Industry-specific recruiting expertise. Goodwin works across specialized sectors where understanding the role, market, and candidate background can make a major difference.
- Executive or leadership search support. Its retained and executive search services support senior and C-suite hiring.
- Access to passive candidates. Recruiters can reach professionals who may not be actively applying through job boards.
- A traditional contingent or retained search model. Companies with payroll, HR, and employment infrastructure in place may only need help finding and evaluating candidates.
- Local market knowledge. A recruiter familiar with a particular city or region can be valuable when compensation, availability, and candidate expectations vary by location.
Goodwin Recruiting can also make sense when the position requires deep U.S. market experience.
For example, a company hiring a hotel general manager, healthcare executive, construction leader, or senior finance professional may care heavily about local industry relationships, regulations, market knowledge, and in-person leadership experience.
In those searches, expanding internationally may add complexity without solving the underlying hiring need.
Goodwin Recruiting is strongest when the challenge is finding the right person within the U.S. market, especially for specialized, local, or executive roles.
That doesn’t make it the better option for every remote hire. It simply means the company is solving a different recruiting problem than South.
If some roles on your team are U.S.-based while others can be remote, you may not even have to choose just one model.
Can You Use South and Goodwin Recruiting Together?
Yes. In some cases, using both can make more sense than forcing every role into the same hiring model.
Companies often have a mix of location-dependent roles and remote-friendly positions. That creates an opportunity to use each recruiting partner where it has the strongest advantage.
You might use Goodwin Recruiting for roles that need to be based in the U.S., while using South for positions that can be hired remotely across Latin America.
For example:
This type of hybrid recruiting strategy can help companies avoid overpaying for roles that don’t need to be U.S.-based while still using domestic recruiters for positions where geography really matters.
It can also make workforce planning more intentional.
Instead of asking whether every new employee should come from the U.S. or Latin America, hiring teams can evaluate each role based on:
- Location requirements
- Salary budget
- Time-zone needs
- Seniority
- Industry specialization
- Customer interaction
- On-site responsibilities
- Availability of qualified candidates
The goal isn’t to choose one recruiting model for your entire company. It’s to match each role with the talent market that makes the most sense.
For growing teams, that could mean keeping certain leadership or operational positions in the U.S. while building engineering, finance, marketing, support, or operations capacity through nearshore hiring in Latin America.
That brings us to the final decision: which recruiting partner should you choose for your next hire?
South vs. Goodwin Recruiting: Which Should You Choose?
The best choice depends on where the role needs to be based and what hiring problem you're trying to solve.
Choose South if you want to expand beyond the U.S. talent market and hire full-time remote professionals across Latin America. It’s a stronger fit for companies focused on nearshore hiring, lower long-term employment costs, U.S. time-zone alignment, and access to pre-vetted LATAM talent across functions such as engineering, finance, marketing, sales, operations, and customer support.
Choose Goodwin Recruiting if you need U.S.-based talent, especially for local, on-site, highly specialized, or executive-level roles. Its nationwide recruiter network and industry-specific search capabilities make it a stronger option when domestic market knowledge matters.
A simple way to think about it is:
- South: best for remote LATAM hiring and distributed teams
- Goodwin Recruiting: best for U.S.-based professional, local, and executive recruiting
The deciding factor usually isn’t which company offers more recruiting services. It’s which talent market makes the most sense for the position.
If the role can be performed remotely, South gives you access to a much broader hiring pool across Latin America. If the job needs someone in a specific U.S. location or requires deep domestic industry experience, Goodwin Recruiting is likely the better match.
Find Remote Talent in Latin America With South
If the role can be done remotely, your next hire doesn’t have to come from the same expensive talent market as your last one.
South helps U.S. companies find pre-vetted remote talent across Latin America for roles in engineering, finance, marketing, sales, customer support, operations, product, and more.
You can expand your search across LATAM, keep strong overlap with U.S. working hours, and hire experienced professionals without building your own international recruiting network from scratch.
South can also support the employment side through Employer of Record services when needed, making it easier to manage contracts, payroll, compliance, and local employment requirements.
If you’re ready to compare candidates outside the U.S. market, South can help you find the right people in Latin America.
Book a free call with South and start meeting pre-vetted LATAM candidates.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the main difference between South and Goodwin Recruiting?
The biggest difference is the talent market each company focuses on. South specializes in helping U.S. companies hire remote professionals across Latin America, while Goodwin Recruiting focuses more heavily on U.S.-based professional, industry-specific, and executive recruiting.
Is South or Goodwin Recruiting better for remote hiring?
South is generally the stronger fit for companies specifically looking to build remote teams in Latin America. Its model is centered on sourcing, vetting, and helping companies hire LATAM professionals who can work closely with U.S. teams.
Goodwin Recruiting can also support remote positions, but remote international hiring isn’t its primary specialization.
Does Goodwin Recruiting hire internationally?
Goodwin Recruiting is primarily known for its U.S. recruiting network and domestic hiring services. Companies specifically looking for international or LATAM recruitment may find a specialized provider like South more aligned with that need.
Is South a staffing agency or recruiting company?
South works as a LATAM recruitment and staffing partner for U.S. companies. It helps employers source and vet remote talent and can also provide Employer of Record services when companies need help employing professionals in Latin America.
Can South help companies hire employees in Latin America?
Yes. South helps companies find and hire professionals across Latin America for roles in engineering, finance, marketing, sales, customer support, operations, product, design, and other remote-friendly functions.
Companies that need additional employment infrastructure can also use South's EOR services to support payroll, contracts, compliance, and local employment administration.
Does Goodwin Recruiting offer executive search?
Yes. Goodwin Recruiting provides executive and retained search services for senior leadership and C-suite positions. That makes it a strong option for companies conducting a U.S.-based executive search or looking for highly specialized senior professionals.
Which is better for hiring software developers: South or Goodwin Recruiting?
For a remote software development role, South may be the better fit because it gives companies access to software developers across Latin America while maintaining strong working-hour overlap with U.S. teams.
Goodwin Recruiting may be more appropriate when the developer needs to be based in a specific U.S. market or when the search is tied to a broader domestic recruiting strategy.
Which is better for small and mid-sized companies?
Either can work, depending on the hiring need.
South can be especially useful for growing companies that want to expand their talent pool, control employment costs, and build distributed teams through nearshore hiring.
Goodwin Recruiting can be a strong fit for companies that need specialized U.S. talent, local hiring support, or executive recruiting.
Can companies use South and Goodwin Recruiting at the same time?
Yes. A company could use Goodwin Recruiting for U.S.-based, on-site, or executive positions while using South for remote roles that can be hired across Latin America.
For teams with a mix of local and distributed positions, using different recruiting partners for different role types can be more effective than relying on one hiring model for every position.
Related Content
- Best Remote Recruitment Agencies for Hiring Talent in 2026
- Best Remote Staffing Agencies in 2026
- 7 Best LATAM Staffing Companies for U.S. Businesses in 2026
- Best Nearshore Staffing Companies in Latin America
- Nearshoring Companies in 2026: How to Choose the Right Partner for Your Team
- 9 Best Companies to Hire LATAM Developers in 2026
