When Alfredo Vaamonde talks about the future of recruiting, he’s quick to clarify one thing: he doesn’t see artificial intelligence as a replacement for recruiters. Instead, he sees it as their partner.
“Our focus is to empower recruiters, not replace them,” Vaamonde told Refresh Miami. “That’s why our company is called MissionHires.”
The Miami-based startup, co-founded by Vaamonde and his wife, Mariana Escolar, automates up to 80% of the hiring process – from sourcing candidates to screening and initial engagement – so recruiters can focus on what matters: connecting with top candidates and making better hiring decisions.
For recruiting and staffing agencies, that efficiency translates into saved time and reduced costs. Instead of paying placement fees of 15–25% of a candidate’s salary, MissionHires offers flat-fee, retainer-based pricing.
“We’re quick, we’re focused on quality, and we’re very cost-efficient,” Vaamonde said.
The company has recently shifted its focus toward staffing and recruiting firms rather than only individual employers. That move has given MissionHires recurring business, with agencies using the platform month after month to support their teams. Healthcare companies and startups remain key clients too, but agencies now represent the biggest growth opportunity.
The technology itself is designed to be simple for recruiters to adopt. After posting a job description, the AI creates an ideal candidate profile, finds both active and passive candidates, and reaches out to them across email, text, or LinkedIn. When candidates respond, they go through a 15–20 minute chat-based interview, where the AI can collect text, audio, or video responses depending on the client’s preference. The system then generates a detailed report with skills, strengths, and any flagged areas for review. Recruiters walk away with a shortlist of pre-screened candidates, ready for live interviews.
“We’re taking the manual, repetitive tasks off their plate so they can be more efficient and place people faster,” Vaamonde explained. That means more time spent actually engaging candidates and less time slogging through inboxes and resumes.
Since launching in January, MissionHires has been averaging about $10,000 in monthly revenue. The team remains lean – just four people, including the husband-and-wife founding duo – but the vision is big. Vaamonde sees MissionHires as industry-agnostic, built to empower staffing agencies, recruiters, and hiring teams anywhere in the world.
That perspective is rooted in Vaamonde’s international experience. After spending the past two years living in Madrid with his family, he moved back to Miami this summer to double down on building MissionHires. The return has given him a fresh look at how much the city has changed since his last company, Papa, was founded here.
“In 2018, nobody was here,” he said. “We were actually pressured by YC to stay in San Francisco, but we chose Miami because this is where our clients were. Back then, there wasn’t really a tech ecosystem.”
Now, he said, Miami is buzzing with entrepreneurial energy. “Just in the past two weeks, I’ve had breakfast and dinner with founders who had moved here from New York and California. That didn’t exist five years ago.”
Still, Vaamonde sees room for growth. He’d like to see more founders born and raised in Miami leading startups. “Most of the entrepreneurs you meet here today are transplants,” he said. “We need more local talent building businesses from the ground up.” He believes universities and large companies will play a crucial role in fostering that next generation of Miami-grown founders.
Pictured above: Alfredo Vaamonde and Mariana Escolar, co-founders of MissionHires
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