Frequently Asked Questions.

Obelisk Talent is a Canadian-incorporated talent outsourcing company that places pre-vetted, full-time Middle Eastern professionals into Canadian SMB teams. We cover four disciplines — Tech & IT, Marketing & Sales, Creatives, and Finance & Ops — under one B2B contract in CAD, with sourcing, vetting, onboarding, payroll, HR compliance, and ongoing account management included in a flat monthly rate.

Obelisk Talent is a managed staffing service, not an EOR: you never employ or contract the professional. Marketplaces like Upwork or Toptal hand you a list of CVs and leave the vetting, onboarding, and management to you. Employer-of-record platforms like Deel handle compliance and payroll but expect you to source the talent yourself. Local recruiters charge a 20–25% placement fee then disappear. Obelisk Talent does the whole job instead: we source, vet, place, and manage the engagement on a flat monthly retainer with no separate placement fee.

You never employ or contract the professional. Obelisk Talent Inc., a federally incorporated Canadian company, holds the agreement with the professional and pays them. You sign one Canadian B2B contract with Obelisk Talent and receive one monthly CAD invoice; we handle HR, payroll & management.

Yes. Obelisk Talent Inc. is federally incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (Corporation Number 1674239-4), with its registered office in Nova Scotia. Canadian clients sign a Canadian B2B contract governed by Canadian law and receive CAD invoices — not a reseller of an offshore agency.

Three reasons: time zone, education pipeline, and cost-to-quality ratio. Middle Eastern talent on a shifted afternoon schedule overlaps Canadian Eastern by 6–7 working hours daily — better than India or Southeast Asia and on par with LATAM. The region produces English-fluent STEM graduates from schools like Cairo University, AUC, AUB, and University of Jordan, and salary bands sit well below Eastern Europe's for comparable seniority.

We recruit from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the wider Middle East. Egypt is the deepest pool (Cairo, Alexandria, Giza); Jordan brings US-aligned business and engineering training; Lebanon adds AUB-trained creative and finance talent. Professionals work remotely from their home country.

Yes. Talent placed through Obelisk Talent works a shifted afternoon-to-evening schedule (roughly 2pm–10pm Cairo time) that gives 6–7 hours of live working overlap with Canadian Eastern, roughly 9am to 3pm in Toronto. Vancouver clients see about 3 hours of overlap; UK clients about 5 hours, with only a 2-hour offset from Cairo. Business English is the working language of Middle Eastern tech, so standups, documentation, and code reviews land in English by default.

Typically about ten days from brief to onboarded: a 15-minute discovery call, a written brief that same day, a shortlist of one or two pre-vetted candidates typically within a week, then contract signed and Day-1 around Day 10. Specialist or rare-stack roles can take longer; we flag that on the discovery call rather than after.

A four-stage evaluation every candidate clears before reaching a client shortlist: (1) manual CV and portfolio review against the written brief, (2) a role-scoped trial task representative of real work, completed before any interview, (3) a 30–45 minute behavioural interview with a co-founder, and (4) AI-assisted scoring across skills, communication, and fit, plus two reference calls. Trade-offs are flagged in the shortlist notes — no gold-plating.

Yes. Within the first 30 days of a hire's start date, we source a replacement at no additional cost — the monthly fee pauses between starts. After 30 days, we still replace on request as part of the ongoing service. The replacement guarantee covers fit and performance issues raised in writing within the 30-day window with the talent given reasonable access, tools, and feedback.

Each engagement runs on a flat monthly Canadian-dollar rate matched to the seniority of the role: Junior $1,500–$2,000, Mid-Level $2,500–$3,500, Senior $3,500–$5,000, Lead $5,000–$6,500. The rate covers everything operational — sourcing, vetting, onboarding, payroll, HR compliance, and ongoing account management. Invoices are issued in CAD from Obelisk Talent Inc.

No. The monthly rate is the rate. Obelisk Talent does not charge placement fees, percentage markups, setup fees, performance kickers, or retention bonuses. The replacement guarantee in the first 30 days is included. Late payment after 30 days accrues interest at 1.5% per month — that is the only additional charge structure in the contract.

Sourcing across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the wider Middle East, the four-stage Obelisk Vetting Process, written shortlist and assessment notes, contract administration, monthly payroll handled on our side, HR compliance for the engagement in the talent's country of residence, equipment and tool-access coordination, ongoing account management, and the 30-day replacement guarantee. The single rate is the all-in cost of the engagement.