Fernando Espinosa, a native of Mexico City, admittedly got into recruiting by accident.  I had just returned to Mexico from Japan (where I became fluent in Japanese) to process my enrollment for a Masters program in Japan.  Instead, I wound up getting an offer from a search firm that was looking for someone fluent in Japanese.  The search firm was looking to expand their service to Japanese companies that were investing in Mexico due to the implementation of NAFTA.  NAFTA was beginning to stimulate development in the U.S. / Mexico border region and Japanese manufacturers needed personnel to get established.  Tijuana quickly became the world capital of TV manufacturing.  As a translator, I had begun to learn about developing candidate profiles and job descriptions and the general requirements of the electronics industry.  I soon segued into recruiting, began studying for my certifications, and did some neurolinguistic and emotional intelligence training as well. I also got to know the border region and the kinds of people that companies were looking for:  bi-lingual, bi-cultural professionals and typically Americans, Mexicans, or Europeans.  In my first full year of recruiting, I billed $300K and was hooked on this new career.

The market in Mexico is obviously much smaller than the U.S. which doesn’t allow the type of “nicheing” that occurs in the U.S..  This means that initially we had to wear a lot “more hats” than firms in more niched markets would.  We have Asian, European and American clients as automotive, medical device, consumer electronics and aerospace manufacturers and they all started in Mexico with aggressive start-up plans.  We grew along with this industry and as a result have diversified ourselves across functional and industry lines.  Qualifind now works search projects from technical, professional and exec-level in accounting, manufacturing operations, engineering, IT, HR, supply chain / logistics, and sales.  Our recruiters come from the industry and know what our clients need in their unfamiliar operating environment.

The Japanese experience helps explain why I’ve been especially successful in what is becoming a global recruiting marketplace. I chose ‘total immersion’ in Japanese language, got to know the cultural ‘codes’ by which they operated, and looked long and hard at Japanese commerce, trade and investment (which led the world when I was there). This cultivated my ability to understand other cultures and work a bit better with them — both clients and candidates — than my competition.  As a result, Qualifind is international in a way that most others are not.  I recently found a Director of Finance for a French client’s Mexico City operation.  In addition to the usual requirements, the candidate had to be a citizen of a West European country for payroll purposes, and possess the ability to speak English, French, and Spanish.  One of my researchers quickly sourced the right person for me.  The candidate was a citizen of Spain with residency in Argentina and was working for a French company in Tunisia.  This is an example of the complex nature of search projects that we manage and how my team of recruiters has caught and is riding the wave of globalization.

I left my original employer after six years due to his inability to relate to broader groups of people.  I was raised in a poor neighborhood in the Mexican capital and didn’t feel part of the owner’s culture.  Once I had decided that I needed to move, I began dialogue with one of my toughest competitors.  He and I had initially discussed partnering during a golf tournament both of our firms sponsored.  We liked each other (we were both equally bad golfers!) and had similar values, goals, and approaches to the business but different enough to have synergy. He was 100% retained in a larger consulting firm and I was 100% contingent with both of us working the same market.  When my friend's firm was acquired by another firm that dissolved the search practice, his Non-Compete was dissolved and his severance included his laptop and the database in order to start what is now Qualifind.  I joined him a few months later and we started working together as full partners. That was in December 1999 and the rest is history.  Today we have a wonderful synergistic relationship, care about each other’s well-being, we “agree to disagree” and our team has grown to 18 employees in six locations within the U.S. and Mexico.

We accomplished another milestone in 2006 by purchasing our own commercial offices in San Diego.  We now have 6,500 square feet of office space with about 40% being utilized by Qualifind and the remainder being leased and providing positive cash flow.  Our tenants are effectively subsidizing our growth plans and allowing us to maintain the extra office space for future growth.

We are based in San Diego and have offices with recruiters (no subcontractors) in Mexico City, Monterrey, Tijuana, Chicago, and El Paso.  All of the offices are networked to our office in San Diego and we’re using Bullhorn as our ATS.  Our philosophy encourages team work when applicable.  About 70% of the time, our recruiters are focused on individual production with the remainder of the projects benefiting from a team approach.  We select new recruiters that have industry experience coupled with strong interpersonal skills, not whether they’ll turn $300K in their first year.  This process has not been without flaws, however we have found that recruiters with industry experience that can successfully engage with clients are more self-directed and professionally mature.

After my first Pinnacle meeting, I couldn’t wait to get home to apply what I’d learned.  Engaging dialogue with big billers is an awesome opportunity for me to grow individually and pass “lessons learned” to our team.  There’s so much to learn from these guys, their well-developed systems and techniques, their very advanced use of technology, their understanding of trends and it’s not all going in one direction.  I enjoy the opportunity to share what I’ve learned as I learn, translate and implement “Best Practices” from Pinnacle into the multi-cultural market that we work in.

The Pinnacle Society, Spring 2008.