What if you could hire educated, dedicated talent while making a difference in people’s lives around the globe? Bloom is making that possible for companies like Pura, BambooHR, and CloudApp as the world’s first social-impact staffing agency. 

Bloom co-founder Eric Engebretsen says the company’s mission is to bring 10,000 better-paying remote jobs to people in emerging markets—and they’re already off to a great start. “In our first full year of business, we’ve hired over 1,000 people across 50 countries, who, on average, are making two-and-a-half times more than their previous job,” Engebretsen says.

Essentially, Bloom provides talent as candidates for clients’ open positions and supports the client/team member relationship throughout the entire engagement. Bloom recruits predominantly college-educated team members in countries around the globe and currently touts 10,000-plus team members in their pool. Since these team members work from home, the company ensures their home offices meet certification standards with internet connectivity, hardware, etc. 

Bloom’s clients get all the benefits of educated, qualified, multilingual workers without having to invest resources in acquiring and managing those team members. Bloom handles the complexities of international hiring, payroll, training, mentoring, and more.

Bloom also puts the control in the hands of the client. “Typically, staffing agencies want to put up a barrier,” Engebretsen says. “They want to decide who joins your team, how much they work, etc. But our clients get to meet and interview our candidates. They decide who they want to work with, in what kind of capacity and which projects they’re working on. The workers join the client’s team just like any other remote worker would, so the experience feels like hiring a domestic worker.”

Bloom has proven this work-from-home model can be achieved and that it adds a lot of value to both the workers and businesses. “We provide a great talent pool while bringing down costs for our clients,” Engebretsen says. “Our margins are way different from traditional outsourcing. We don’t have as much overhead, which makes us more cost-effective.”

Bloom has streamlined the application process for new team members, with online applications taking just 30 seconds. The company also offers interview training and practice to help its team members put their best foot forward during the client matching phase. From there, Bloom fosters ongoing professional development with ongoing training and support for its team members.

For clients, Bloom says its talent pool is composed largely of workers who have studied at accredited U.S. universities or have worked alongside Americans. A flexible pricing plan and scalable hiring services empower companies to grow their teams quickly. 

With workers in over 65 countries, Bloom also provides companies the ability to offer services in multiple languages and time zones. And because Bloom hires and pays all team members directly, clients don’t have to worry about international taxes, forms or fees, which helps mitigate risk.

Beyond providing qualified, remote international talent, Bloom embraces its role as an innovator in mission-driven staffing. The idea for the company is rooted in the time co-founders Engebretsen and John Pearce spent in South America as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“We saw and met so many amazing people that were hard-working, talented and educated, but just because of where they were born or lived, they didn’t have the same opportunities we had,” Engebretsen says. “John and I spent years bouncing ideas off each other, knowing we wanted to do something that could impact the people we’d come to know and love. We just weren’t sure how to make that happen.”

Their careers initially took the long-time friends in different directions. Engebretsen headed to San Francisco, where he worked for a large tech company that managed international hiring. Pearce worked at one of the nation’s largest online universities. When the pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote work, they realized they could bring their backgrounds together to pursue their passion of elevating lives in emerging markets. 

“My partner and I started this company in true bootstrap business fashion, working on nights and weekends out of our houses,” Engebretsen says. “We did that for a while, until I took the plunge last year and quit my job to do Bloom full-time. Now we have more than 20 full-time workers, and we practice what we preach. Our entire team [is made of] international folks working outside the U.S. Our mission is all about connecting U.S. businesses with international talent, and that’s how we’ve scaled our own business, from sales and marketing to talent acquisition, customer success and website design.”

Bloom has intentionally steered clear of external funding. “We want to find strategic partners and advisors that could provide the same kind of guidance that a VC could, but for us to keep control of our mission is at the forefront of everything we do,” Engebretsen says. “We value our impact over making a profit, so that’s why we’ve decided to keep self-funding the business.” 

The company articulates that despite its altruistic mission, it is not a charity. Bloom is intent on delivering premium staffing for its clients while championing the long-term effects that good-paying remote work can provide its team members.

Reviews on its website indicate that Bloom is making headway for both parties. “The Bloom team has been amazing to work with,” wrote Scott Smith, CEO of CloudApp. “They helped us fill several key roles that we needed to add very quickly, and our customer support has never been better.”

Robb Young, director of customer support for BambooHR, wrote, “The Bloom team is extremely dedicated to their customers and the vision of the company. Our Bloom team members are capable and fit into our existing teams seamlessly!”

Maria, a remote worker in Argentina, reviewed her experience as well. “I was immediately impressed by Bloom and its desire to help people succeed,” she wrote. “As an IT help desk agent, I earn twice as much while working from home, allowing me to pursue my professional goals while studying and establishing a family. A dream come true!”

Engebretsen says he feels lucky and grateful that Bloom has become his life’s work. “Our belief is if we can get these people access to better-paying remote work opportunities, it will open other doors that can change lives,” Engebretsen says. “More than any humanitarian work, any donation—if you can give somebody a job, it unlocks a sense of fulfillment they need to keep building and progressing throughout the rest of their lives.” 

These jobs will impact their personal and professional development, Engebretsen says, giving them access to skills, work experience, leadership styles and U.S. work culture they wouldn’t otherwise have. “They’ll be able to bless their families and their communities. They’ll have more resources to invest in their local economies,” he continues. “It all starts with that job and fans out generationally from there.”