Joining Xacently

01Who can apply

Set aside about an hour. If you have your CV, your ID and a quiet room with decent light ready before you start, you can finish the whole application in one sitting. Every step saves as you go, so you can stop and come back.

We hire from these markets.

Our clients are in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the EU and the Gulf. Your working hours matter to them, so the platform scores how much your day overlaps with theirs when it builds a shortlist.

The two tracks

Pick the track that matches the work you want. Your assessment questions come from that track, so a mismatch costs you a good score.

02Before you start

Get all of this together first. It is the difference between finishing in one sitting and losing an afternoon. Tick these off as you go.

• A working email address you check daily
• Your CV as a PDF or DOCX, under 10MB
• A government-issued photo ID that has not expired
• A phone with a camera and microphone, or a laptop with a webcam
• A quiet, well-lit spot for the video and the ID check
• A stable internet connection for about 45 minutes straight
• A phone number you can receive messages on
• Thirty uninterrupted minutes for the skills assessment

03The application, step by step

Step 0. Create your account

Go to the signup page and choose Find work. You give your full name, your email and a password of at least eight characters with an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter and a number.

We email you a verification link. Click it, then log in. You land in the onboarding wizard with six steps across the top. Finished steps get a tick, and you can click back to any of them.

Step 1. About you

Your headline is the first line a client reads on your shortlist card. Name the role and the tools, like "Senior Full-Stack Developer, React and Node.js" or "Bookkeeper for e-commerce, QuickBooks and Xero". Skip the adjectives.

Your bio should answer three things: what you build or run, who you have done it for, and what you are good at that the next person is not. Concrete beats impressive. "I rebuilt a checkout that was dropping 12% of orders" lands harder than "passionate problem solver".

Your timezone is set from your country automatically.

Step 2. Your track, skills and rate

Only pick skills you would be comfortable being tested on. Your assessment questions are drawn from them, and clients see them on your card. Ten shallow skills score worse than four you know cold.

On your rate. You are being priced into the international market, not your local one. Research what the role pays in the cities our clients hire from, then pitch where your experience honestly sits within that. Setting a rate far below the market reads as inexperience rather than value, and it is difficult to raise later. Setting one far above your evidence means you will not clear shortlists. If you are unsure, our team will tell you where your rate sits once you are vetted.

Switching track clears your selected skills, since skills belong to one track.

Step 3. Your CV

PDF or DOCX, up to 10MB. Clients download it straight from your shortlist card, so treat it as a client-facing document.

Keep it to two pages, put your most recent work first, and give each role numbers where you have them. Make sure the name on it matches your account and your ID. You can replace it at any time by uploading a new one.

Step 4. Your video introduction

Up to 90 seconds, recorded in your browser or uploaded as a file. This is how a client meets you before a call is ever booked. Full requirements are in section 05.

Step 5. The skills assessment

About ten questions in thirty minutes, drawn from the skills you picked.

• The timer starts when you click begin, and it keeps running whether the tab is open or not
• Multiple-choice and ordering questions score instantly
• Written answers go to a reviewer on our team, so a partly right answer still earns credit
• Lose your connection and you can come back to the same attempt with the time that is left
• You get one attempt, so start it when you have a clear half hour

IT and Engineering gets code reading, debugging scenarios and two written answers. Non-IT gets scenarios built from the actual job: prioritise an inbox, resolve a double-booked calendar, draft the reply that fixes an unhappy client.

Read every question twice. Half of the wrong answers we see come from skimming, not from a knowledge gap.

Step 6. Verify your identity

Biometric consent

Before your first check you tick a consent box that is separate from our terms of service. It explains that our verification partner, Didit, extracts facial geometry from your ID photo and your selfie to confirm you are the same person each time.

We keep the result, meaning your name, document country and whether the check passed. We never hold your raw ID images or selfies ourselves. You can withdraw consent later, which means we cannot place you with a client until you consent again. Section 15 sets out your rights in full.

The check itself

You are handed to Didit's flow, where you photograph your ID and take a live selfie. It takes two or three minutes. When you come back, your status updates on its own.

Abandoned the flow or hit a problem? Restart it from the same screen.

Submitting

Once identity verification is at least under way, submit your application. Your profile locks while we review it, and review takes two to three business days. We look at your profile, CV, video and assessment together, including your written answers. You get an email when there is a decision, and any notes show at the top of your dashboard.

04Document requirements

Government-issued photo ID

One of: an international passport photo page, a national ID card (both sides), or a driver's licence (both sides).

Photograph it flat on a plain surface in daylight, not under a bare bulb. Turn your flash off and move the light instead. Do not cover any part of it with your fingers.

Live selfie

Taken during the same flow, on the spot. Face the camera in even light, no hat, no sunglasses, and take your mask off. A photo of a photo will not pass.

CV

PDF or DOCX, 10MB maximum.

Phone number

Some checks confirm a working phone number before you go on a shortlist. Keep a number you actually use on your account.

Payout details, requested later

When your first payment is due, our team asks for your bank or mobile money details. The account has to be in your own name and match the name on your verified ID. We cannot pay into a third party's account, including a relative's.

Optional, and worth adding

Certifications, degrees, portfolio pieces and links to published work all sit on your profile after you are vetted. See section 08.

05Your video introduction

Browser recording needs camera and microphone permission. If your browser does not support it, or you would rather record on your phone, use the upload link under the recorder. Phones shoot MP4 by default, so that works.

What to say

Ninety seconds is roughly 200 words. A structure that works:

1. 1

   First 10 seconds

   Who you are. Name, role, where you are based.

2. 2

   Next 30 seconds

   What you do. Your track and the work you do most. Name the tools.

3. 3

   Next 30 seconds

   Proof. One project or client, and what changed because of you. Numbers if you have them.

4. 4

   Last 20 seconds

   What you want next. The kind of team or work you are looking for.

Practise it twice out loud, then record. Reading off a script shows, and clients notice.

Getting it to look and sound right

Light. Face a window. Never sit with a window or a bright lamp behind you, which turns you into a silhouette.

Sound. This matters more than picture quality. A small room with soft furnishings beats a large empty one. Close the windows and doors, turn off the fan, and put your phone on silent. Wired earphones with a mic usually sound better than your laptop.

Frame. Camera at eye level, so raise your laptop on a stack of books if you need to. Head and shoulders in shot with a little space above your head. Look at the lens, not at your own face on screen.

Background. Tidy and plain. A wall is fine. Nothing has to be fancy, just uncluttered.

Delivery. Natural beats polished. Smile, speak a little slower than feels normal, and let a small stumble go rather than restarting for the fifth time.

What sends a video back

• Sound so quiet or echoey that we cannot make out words
• Filmed vertically, so most of the frame is ceiling and floor
• Someone else visible or audible in the shot
• Reading a script off-camera for the whole 90 seconds
• Contact details on screen. Clients reach you through the platform.
• A generic clip with no mention of your actual work

You can re-record as many times as you like before you move on, and you can replace it later from your profile.

06After you submit

Vetted means your profile goes live to matching. Clients start seeing you on shortlists, ranked by Fit Score.

How Fit Score works

Your Fit Score against a given role comes from four things:

• How well your skills match what the client asked for
• Your assessment result
• How much your working day overlaps with the client's
• Whether your availability fits what they need

Clients only see talent scoring 70% or above for their role.

07If we come back with notes

Most applications that are not vetted first time are not rejections. They are a specific fixable problem, and the note at the top of your dashboard tells you which one.

Fix what the note asks for and resubmit. You go back into the same queue and the same two to three business day review. There is no limit on how many times you can correct and resubmit, and doing so does not count against you.

If your application is genuinely not successful

Sometimes the answer is no for now. The usual reasons are that the assessment result was well below the standard for the skills claimed, or that the experience on the CV does not yet match what our clients hire for.

This is not permanent. You can apply again after six months, and we would encourage you to, particularly if you have gained a certification, shipped something substantial, or moved into a role with more responsibility since. Say what has changed when you reapply.

An account closed for a conduct or integrity reason under section 11 is different, and is not eligible to reapply.

08Finish your profile

A complete profile gets shortlisted more. Your dashboard shows a completion percentage and what is still missing.

• Profile photo, a plain headshot, up to 5MB, PNG or JPEG
• Bio and hourly rate
• CV and video introduction
• Skills
• Work experience
• Education
• At least one portfolio project

Also worth doing

Verify individual skills. Add a skill after onboarding and you can take a short four-question quiz on it. Score 70% or better and the skill shows as verified on your profile. Some skills do not have a question bank yet, in which case the quiz is not offered.

Add certifications with issuer and date, especially the ones clients ask for by name: AWS, CPA, Google Ads, Salesforce.

Keep your availability honest. Marking yourself full-time while you are booked solid wastes everyone's time and hurts your standing with the team.

Keep it current. Profiles that have not been touched in a long time drift down shortlists. If your situation changes, whether that is new skills, a different rate or reduced availability, update it that week.

09How you get matched and hired

1. 1

   You appear on shortlists

   Clients post a role, the platform ranks vetted talent by Fit Score, and our team puts the shortlist in front of them.

2. 2

   Matched jobs show up for you

   Anything scoring 70% or above lands in your Matched jobs tab. Tap "I'm interested" on the ones you want. Our team sees it.

3. 3

   Interviews get arranged

   The client proposes times, our team confirms one in-app, and a Xacently staff member joins the call with you. You get the meeting link in your dashboard.

4. 4

   You get a proposal

   It carries the scope, the start date and your payout. Read the scope, tick the confirmation box, then accept or decline. Your tick is timestamped and becomes part of the engagement record.

5. 5

   A quick identity re-check

   Accepting fires a fresh selfie check. No new document, no forms.

6. 6

   The engagement goes live

   Once the client's payment clears, and you start on the agreed date.

10Identity checks while you work

Verification does not stop when you are vetted. Two more checks happen, both selfie-only, with no new documents and no forms.

Each one takes about sixty seconds and you get an email when it is waiting. Leave it sitting and your engagement cannot stay active, so do it the day it arrives.

11The rules that keep you on

These are short, and they exist because our entire offer to clients rests on them. Breaking one is the only thing that gets an account closed permanently.

The four that matter

What happens if a rule is broken

It depends on what happened. A first, minor issue usually means a conversation and a correction. An integrity breach, meaning identity substitution, a shared account or someone else doing the work, means the account is closed, any active engagement ends, and the account is not eligible to reapply.

If we are wrong, tell us. Email hello@xacently.com and a different member of the team will look at it. We would rather review a decision than lose a good professional to a mistake.

What you can expect from us in return

• We never charge you a fee, at any stage, for anything
• We tell you the rate a client is paying for your work, not just your payout
• We do not bench you. If you are not working, you are not tied to us
• We do not stop you being hired directly by a client
• We debrief you honestly after every interview, including the ones that do not go your way

12Getting paid

Project engagements

The client pays into the platform before you start. When the engagement completes, our team approves your payout and it is disbursed to your local account. The figure in your proposal is what reaches you, with the platform fee already accounted for. Your dashboard tracks each payout from pending to paid.

Direct hire

Here the client employs you and pays your salary directly, on whatever cycle you agreed. Xacently is paid a placement fee by the client. Nothing is taken out of your salary.

Your payout account

Either way, your payout account has to be in your own legal name, matching your verified ID. We cannot pay a third party's account. If your bank details change, update them before your next payout is due rather than after.

13Tax and your legal status

This section is general information, not tax or legal advice. Rules differ in every country we hire from, and a local accountant is worth the fee.

You are self-employed

On a project engagement you are an independent contractor in your own country. You are not an employee of Xacently, and you are not an employee of the client. That means:

• You are responsible for declaring your income and paying any tax due where you live
• No tax is withheld from your payout. What arrives is gross, and what you owe on it is yours to settle
• You are responsible for your own pension, insurance and any statutory contributions your country requires of the self-employed
• You provide your own equipment and workspace, as set out in section 14

On a direct hire the client employs you, and how tax is handled depends on the arrangement and country. Your employment contract with them is the document that governs it.

Keep records

Keep your proposals, your payout records and any correspondence about scope. Your dashboard holds the payout history, but a local copy costs you nothing and makes a tax return straightforward. Several of our markets require self-employed individuals to register with the tax authority, so check what applies where you live before your first payout.

14Tools and setup you need

What the platform itself needs

Your working setup

This is what clients expect from a remote hire, and what you will be asked about in interviews.

Computer

• A laptop or desktop from roughly the last five years
• 8GB of RAM minimum, 16GB if you are on the IT track
• Windows 10 or 11, macOS 12 or newer, or a current Linux distribution
• 256GB of storage with room to spare
• Your own machine, not a shared or public one

Internet and power

This is the part that most often decides whether a client renews.

• A main connection of at least 10 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up, wired if you can manage it
• A backup, usually a mobile hotspot on a different network, with data loaded before you need it
• A power backup that covers your working day: an inverter, a UPS or a generator, whichever fits where you are

Test both on a real video call before you commit to hours.

Peripherals

• A headset with a boom or inline mic. Laptop speakers cause echo that everyone else has to sit through.
• A webcam at 720p or better, which most laptops have
• A second monitor if you can. It pays for itself in a week.
• A quiet spot you can use during your agreed hours

Software you will meet

You will be added to the client's own workspaces, so you do not need paid licences for most of these. Being familiar with them is what counts, and you will not be asked to buy any of it.

Everyone

Set up two-factor authentication now. Most clients require it before they will hand over access to anything.

IT and Engineering

Non-IT

Working the client's hours

Your Fit Score already accounts for timezone overlap, so you will be matched with clients whose day meaningfully crosses yours. Once you are hired, the agreed overlap window is a commitment. Be online for it, on time, every day.

• Set your working hours in your calendar and keep it visible to the team
• Say something in chat when you start and when you finish
• Flag a blocker the hour it appears, not at the end of the day
• Give notice of holidays and local public holidays in advance

15Your data and your rights

You are handing us identity documents and biometric data. You should know exactly what happens to them.

What we hold, and what we do not

What you can ask us to do

Data protection law in the countries we hire from, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Jamaica, along with the rules covering our clients in the EU and the UK, gives you rights over your own data. In practice you can ask us to:

• Show you what we hold about you
• Correct anything that is wrong
• Delete your account and the data attached to it
• Withdraw your biometric consent, which stops further identity checks. We cannot place you with a client while consent is withdrawn, but you can consent again at any time
• Explain how a decision about your application was reached

Email privacy@xacently.com from your registered address. We will confirm receipt and respond within the period our regulators require. Some records, such as payment history, we have to keep for a period even after an account closes, because tax and accounting law requires it. We will tell you when that applies rather than leaving you to guess.

Who else sees your information

• Clients see your profile, CV, video, skills and verification status when you are on their shortlist. They do not see your ID document or your selfie.
• Our verification partner, Didit, processes your ID and selfie to run the check. You can contact them directly at privacy@didit.me about data they hold.
• Nobody else. We do not sell your data and we do not pass your details to recruiters outside the platform.

16Spotting recruitment scams

Jobseekers across Africa and the Caribbean are targeted relentlessly by fake recruiters, and some of them use real company names, including ours. This is how to tell the difference.

How to check a message really came from us

Other signals worth knowing

• An offer arriving with no interview and no assessment
• A request to pay for equipment, software or a training course before you start
• A cheque or transfer sent to you with instructions to forward part of it onward, which is a money-laundering setup and can put you in legal trouble
• A request to move the conversation to a personal account or a different platform immediately
• Contact from someone who cannot answer basic questions about the role or the client

If something looks wrong

Stop replying and email hello@xacently.com with a screenshot and the sender's address. You will not be penalised for reporting something that turns out to be genuine, and you will help us shut down an impersonation faster. If you have already sent money or shared banking details, contact your bank the same day and then tell us.

17Why applications stall

Seven problems account for most delays, and every one of them is fixable.

18Questions

Tell us your registered email address and the step you are stuck on, and we will come back to you. If your question is about a payment or an active engagement, say so in the subject line and we will prioritise it.