Everything, in one place.

VetMark is a focused talent marketplace connecting U.S. businesses with vetted African marketing and virtual-assistance professionals. Every candidate completes a six stage screening process led by a working marketing specialist before an employer ever sees them.

The aim is narrow on purpose: be the most credible route into U.S. businesses for African marketing and virtual-assistance professionals, and the most reliable shortcut past the screening problem for the businesses hiring them.

On the employer side: U.S. businesses, founders and marketing or creative agencies who need capable remote support and do not have the time, or the in-house specialist, to screen for it properly.

On the talent side: African marketing specialists and virtual assistants who are ready for serious international work and want to be assessed on capability rather than on price.

Because those are the disciplines we can assess credibly. Vetting is led by a marketing specialist with two decades in the field, and virtual assistance sits close enough that the same standards of communication, reliability and process discipline apply.

Screening for a field we have not worked in would reproduce exactly the generalist problem VetMark was built to solve. Most marketplaces cover tech, finance, healthcare, admin and marketing under one promise of vetting, and breadth that wide makes genuine craft assessment structurally impossible.

Three practical reasons. Working time-zone overlap with U.S. business hours, which many offshore markets cannot offer. English as a working language across the markets we recruit from, which matters enormously for content, email and any client-facing role. And a large, young, digitally-native professional population whose marketing capability is systematically underpriced relative to what it delivers.

The geography explains why the opportunity exists. The vetting is what proves it case by case.

Against a staffing agency, two structural differences. Who does the assessment: a working marketing specialist rather than a recruiter screening across unrelated industries. And the economics: traditional staffing agencies commonly mark contractor rates up 50% to 85%, and that overhead has to come from somewhere.

Against a freelance platform, the difference is signal. Open platforms are optimised for volume and price discovery, giving you enormous choice and almost no way to tell craft from confidence. Ratings measure client satisfaction, not capability, and the two often diverge.

Only where we can bring in a practitioner capable of leading the vetting in that discipline. Expansion driven by demand rather than by capability is how every generalist marketplace ended up where it is, and copying that route would cost us the one thing that makes VetMark worth choosing.

Book a 15 minute intake call. Bring the outcome you need rather than a job title, the tools your team already runs on, a budget band even a rough one, and the hours of overlap you genuinely need.

You leave that call with a clear answer on whether VetMark is the right route for the role, and a realistic date to expect a shortlist. If it is a role we cannot fill well, we say so then rather than three weeks later.

Within about one business day of the intake call, everything from that conversation goes into a written brief covering scope, must-haves separated from nice-to-haves, screening emphasis, overlap hours, rate band and target start date.

You approve it before a single candidate is assessed against it. Vague briefs produce vague shortlists, and the fastest way to waste three weeks is to skip the step where we write it down and you correct it.

It depends on the brief. Where vetted professionals in that discipline are already available it is quick, often within a few business days of the intake call. A more specialised requirement takes longer, because new candidates have to clear all six screening stages before they will be shown to you.

You get a realistic date at the intake conversation rather than an optimistic one. If a brief will take several weeks to fill properly, we say so then rather than sending a fast shortlist of people who have not finished the process.

Typically two to four. A shortlist is short on purpose. Sending you twelve names would look thorough and would quietly move the screening work back onto your desk, which is the thing you came here to avoid.

Each candidate arrives with their live task output, their test project, the assessor's notes including any reservations, plus overlap hours, availability and rate. You are judging evidence rather than self-description.

No, and nothing is payable if you do not. If the shortlist misses, tell us specifically what was wrong and we will use that to reshape the search, or we will tell you honestly that we are not the right route for this role.

"The audits are thorough but the client-facing writing needs heavy editing" tells us exactly what to screen harder for. "Not quite right" tells us nothing.

Yes, and plenty of clients do. Our screening is designed to make your interview shorter and higher in signal, never to replace your own judgement. You have the candidate's live task and test project in front of you, so your own exercise can focus on whatever we did not cover.

We would be suspicious of any marketplace that asked you to hire from a profile page.

We can staff multiple roles across the six categories, each screened separately against its own rubric. There is no bundling of a weaker candidate alongside a strong one.

One caution worth stating plainly: several simultaneous roles take longer to fill properly than one, and a client who needs four people next week is usually better served hiring two now and two once the first pair is working well.

Raise it on the call anyway. If it is adjacent to marketing or virtual assistance we may be able to help. If it is not, we will say so directly rather than taking the brief and hoping.

The six launch categories are SEO, paid media, content, social, email and virtual assistance.

At any point, at no cost. Nothing is payable until the professional you chose actually begins work, so a cancelled search is simply a search that ends. There is no kill fee, no retainer to forfeit and nothing to reclaim.

A skills test scored against a rubric built for that specific role. A communication clarity test assessed in writing and in conversation. A portfolio review that interrogates what the candidate personally owned rather than what the team delivered. A time-boxed, unassisted live task. A client-simulation test project with realistic ambiguity built in. And an interview with a working marketing specialist.

Every stage is pass or stop. Failing one ends the process, and there is no accumulated-score route onto the network.

A working marketing specialist with more than twenty years in SEO and agency-side delivery, not a generalist recruiter. Assessors are practitioners in the discipline they screen for.

That constraint is the product rather than a stage we intend to grow out of. It is the last thing we would compromise in order to move faster.

It records that a professional completed our screening process to the standard applied at the time of assessment, across skills, experience, communication and remote-work readiness.

It is expressly not a warranty of future performance, not a background or criminal record check unless we state in writing that one was carried out, and not a substitute for your own interview and references. It raises the probability of a good hire. It cannot guarantee an outcome that also depends on your brief, your onboarding and the working relationship itself.

No, and we will not claim otherwise. That is precisely why the ten business day replacement window exists: to put a real cost on our side of the table rather than a promise we cannot honour.

Confident answers that are wrong on fundamentals. Terminology used correctly with no understanding underneath. Team outcomes presented as individual ones. Live task output that does not match the standard of the submitted portfolio. Undisclosed assistance. Executing a flawed brief without ever questioning it. Reasoning that cannot survive a follow-up question. Defensiveness about straightforward feedback.

Any single one of those ends the process at that stage.

Not as standard, and we will not imply otherwise. The six stages assess capability, communication and professional reliability. They are not a criminal record check, a credit check or a right-to-work verification.

If your role requires any of those, raise it at the intake call and we will tell you honestly whether we can arrange it and what it would involve.

Candidates must complete skills tests, live tasks and test projects personally and without undisclosed assistance, and must disclose AI use when asked. Undisclosed assistance ends the process.

The live task exists partly for this reason. It is time-boxed and unassisted, so it shows how someone works when they cannot prepare, which is much closer to how the job really works.

Yes. We may remove any professional at our discretion, including for misrepresentation, repeated unresponsiveness, unprofessional conduct, or conduct that damages a client relationship. A Verified designation can also be amended, suspended or withdrawn.

Two models. For ongoing contract, freelance and virtual-assistance engagements, a monthly markup of 15% to 25% on the professional's agreed rate. For direct hire, a one-time placement fee of 15% to 20% of first-year gross salary, invoiced on the start date.

Nothing is payable before that. Intake, the written brief, sourcing, all six screening stages, the shortlist and interviews are all included at no charge.

Added on top. The professional receives their full agreed rate and VetMark's margin is charged to you separately.

This matters more than it sounds. Models that deduct commission from the worker's rate create a quiet incentive to push rates down, and that eventually shows up in who is willing to work through the platform.

It depends on the seniority of the role, how specialised the brief is, and how much screening work it takes to fill. A discipline already covered on the vetted bench sits lower than a niche brief requiring a fresh search through all six stages.

You get the exact figure in writing before anything begins, and it does not move during the engagement.

For ongoing engagements you receive one consolidated monthly invoice from VetMark covering the professional's rate plus our markup, and we handle paying the professional. One vendor, one payment, one paper trail for your bookkeeping.

Direct-hire placements are invoiced once, on the start date. All amounts are stated and payable in United States dollars on net 15 terms, exclusive of any applicable taxes. Overdue balances may accrue interest at 1.5% per month.

The markup percentage stays the same and applies to the new rate. If you move someone from full-time to two days a week, both the professional's rate and our markup fall proportionally. There is no minimum billing and no penalty for scaling down.

Yes, and plenty of clients plan for it from the start. The conversion terms, including how much of the markup already paid is credited against the placement fee, are agreed in your engagement agreement rather than negotiated at the point you want to convert.

Raise it at the intake call if it is your likely direction, because it changes which candidates make sense to shortlist.

No. There are no job-posting fees, no candidate-database access fees, no search retainers and no subscriptions. If a fee is not set out in your engagement agreement, it is not payable.

Professionals are never charged anything at any stage either.

The fair comparison is total cost rather than hourly rate. A U.S. in-house hire carries salary plus payroll taxes, benefits, software seats and amortised recruitment cost. An agency retainer bundles account management and overhead you may not need.

We deliberately do not publish assumed talent costs, because we would be inventing them. The calculator on the pricing page runs on your own figures instead.

Possibly, for new engagements. Your agreed percentage does not change during an engagement that is already running. If we revise published rates we will say so plainly rather than quietly repricing renewals, and existing clients will hear it from us before they read it on the website.

Professionals placed through VetMark engage as independent contractors, not as your employees. They are responsible for their own income tax and statutory obligations in their country of residence, and that responsibility is set out in their agreement.

Worker classification is determined by the law of the relevant jurisdiction and by the substance of the working relationship, not by the label the parties apply to it. VetMark is a talent marketplace, not your tax or employment counsel. Run the arrangement past your own advisor.

Because professionals are non-U.S. persons performing services outside the United States, U.S. payroll tax and withholding generally do not apply, and a Form 1099-NEC is not typically issued for foreign contractors. A Form W-8BEN is collected instead.

We supply the documentation your accountant will ask for. This is general information rather than tax advice, and treatment should be confirmed with your own accountant.

Not as standard. VetMark does not employ professionals or act as an employer of record unless expressly agreed in a separate signed agreement. If you need a full employer-of-record structure, tell us on the call and we will say plainly whether we can support it.

Every professional signs a confidentiality undertaking before receiving any client access, covering client information, briefs and materials both during and after an engagement.

For agencies placing talent onto their own client accounts, we can sign your NDA and downstream data-protection terms rather than insisting on ours. Bring them to the call.

You do. Work product created for a client during a paid engagement is assigned to that client on payment. It is your content, your campaign assets, your documentation.

Pre-existing materials, tools, templates and methods a professional brings with them remain theirs, with a licence to you to the extent they are embedded in the work product.

If you engage a professional we introduced without going through VetMark, the applicable fee still becomes payable for 12 months after the introduction. It exists because we carry the entire cost of sourcing and six-stage screening before we invoice anything.

It does not apply where you can show a documented relationship predating the introduction, or where the professional independently applied to you through a public advertisement with no reference to VetMark.

We hold contact details, brief data, engagement and payment records, and technical data from the website, and use them to operate the service. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.

You can request access, correction, deletion or restriction at any time by emailing john@vetmark.io. Retention periods, legal bases and international transfer safeguards are all set out on the Terms and Policies page.

The laws of the State of Delaware, United States. Disputes start with a conversation: email us describing the issue and we respond in good faith, and only if that does not resolve it within 30 days does the formal process begin.

The full dispute clause, including the arbitration agreement and the 30 day opt-out available to you, is set out in the Terms and Policies.

If a placement is not the right fit within ten business days of the start date, tell us in writing and we run the replacement search at no additional search or placement fee. If we cannot present a suitable replacement within 30 business days, the placement fee is refunded in full.

You did not sit in the screening calls, so you should not carry the whole risk of them.

Written notice inside the ten business day window, which runs from the agreed start date. A specific reason rather than general dissatisfaction. A role and brief that are materially unchanged. And invoices for work already performed settled.

We ask for specifics because a vague reason cannot be screened against, and it turns the replacement search into a guess.

Payment for work actually performed, because a person did that work and has been paid for it. Anything after the window closes. A role that has materially changed since the brief was approved. Consequential losses such as lost revenue or missed deadlines. And your own change of mind, which is a legitimate reason to end an engagement but is not a claim.

For an ongoing engagement, the markup simply stops when the engagement does. You are never locked into paying for someone who is no longer working.

For a direct hire, the replacement window is ten business days from the start date, so a departure at three months is a new search rather than a guarantee claim. That is the honest position, and it is the same position every recruitment firm takes once its guarantee period has run.

One per engagement unless we agree otherwise in writing. A replacement carries its own ten business day window from the new start date, so you are not left unprotected on the second placement.

If a second replacement is genuinely needed, that is a signal the brief or our screening is wrong, and that conversation is more useful than another search.

To the account the original payment came from, within ten business days of the refund being agreed in writing, in United States dollars at the amount invoiced. Your bank may take longer to post it.

The refund covers the placement fee, not amounts paid for work performed. Taxes charged on the fee are refunded with it where applicable.

The markets we recruit from sit between UTC and UTC+3, roughly 4 to 7 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern and 7 to 10 ahead of U.S. Pacific. In practice a professional starting at 9am West Africa Time is online well before your morning stand-up.

Required overlap is confirmed in the search brief, and only candidates who have committed to it are shortlisted.

Yours. Your Slack, your project management tool, your ad accounts, your reporting stack. We do not insert a portal between you and the person doing the work, and we do not route your communication through an account manager.

Tool fluency is confirmed during vetting, so you are not paying someone to learn GA4 or Klaviyo on your time.

You provision tool and account access on day one, name the person they report to, and agree a first deliverable with a real deadline. We send an onboarding checklist, confirm working hours, response times and reporting cadence in writing, and check in with both sides at the end of week one.

Most remote hires that fail do not fail on capability. They fail in week one, on access and expectations nobody wrote down.

You do. VetMark does not perform, supervise, direct or quality-control the work carried out during an engagement. The working relationship is between you and the professional.

Someone on your side needs to be accountable for them from day one. Remote hires that fail usually fail on ownership rather than ability.

No minimum term on ongoing engagements and no exit fee. Notice periods are set out in your engagement agreement, and hours can scale up or down between months.

Tell us. Outside the guarantee window it is not a claim, but it is still useful information and we would rather hear it early than find out when an engagement ends abruptly.

Feedback goes back into the screening rubric, and where the same issue appears repeatedly it affects whether that person stays on the network.

Yes. Professionals working in our focus areas can apply and complete the relevant screening. Pick your discipline, share a CV and two or three real work examples, say what you personally owned on each, and state your available hours and rate expectation.

The process is demanding by design, and not everyone who applies will pass. That is the point of it, and it is what makes the designation mean anything to a client.

No. VetMark does not charge professionals any fee to apply, to be assessed, or to join the network. There is no charge for the skills test, live task, test project or interview, and no subscription, membership or profile fee. VetMark is paid by clients, not by professionals.

If anyone ever asks you to pay a fee in VetMark's name, do not pay it. Email john@vetmark.io and tell us what happened.

No, and we will never present it that way. Acceptance into the network and the Verified designation do not guarantee introductions, interviews, engagements or income. We make no representation about the volume, frequency or value of opportunities.

What it does is put your assessment evidence in front of a client, so they are judging your work rather than your self-description.

You receive your full agreed rate on the schedule set in your engagement agreement. VetMark's margin is charged to the client on top of your rate rather than deducted from it.

Where VetMark administers the engagement we pay you directly, which is why the client receives one consolidated invoice instead of arranging international payment themselves. You are responsible for your own tax and statutory contributions in your country of residence.