Talent - Andy Esparza

Creativity is fundamental to Dell's recruiting process. As reliable as internal referrals are, they simply aren't enough to keep the process going. Neither is the company's popular Web site. Although roughly one-third of Dell's total hires enter the pipeline by submitting a résumé to the site, that group includes relatively few executives. Often, the strongest executive candidates aren't even looking for a job -- so it's up to Dell to find them through painstaking research.

Enter Esparza's "leads team," which he compares to a swat outfit, because its members are fast, aggressive, and effective when it comes to "gathering intelligence" and coming up with potential candidates. They comb through newspapers, trade journals, and company Web sites for rising stars, resignations, and companies in flux. For the latter, they know the telltale signs: a merger, a round of layoffs, a declining stock price. "In those cases, we're looking for people who might be a little uncomfortable in their current jobs," says Esparza. He should know. Before coming to Dell, he worked for NCR Corp., which had experienced a few years of negative growth. Dell was the challenge that he needed.

Dell doesn't sit on new leads. One recent candidate, after emailing her résumé directly to Michael Dell, was shocked to hear from Esparza the next morning -- before she was even awake. Esparza had forgotten about the time difference and had phoned at 6:30 AM her time. But his impatience paid off: A few weeks later, she was working at Dell. "We jump on leads very, very quickly," Esparza says. "We put extra emphasis on speed and execution." The right technology helps: Information on every candidate goes into a database of current and future leads, so that recruiters can easily track the status of those leads and follow up on them.

Outside the Box

In the old days -- in other words, a couple of years ago -- Dell focused primarily on recruits from the high-tech sector. Today, it can no longer afford to do that. "Growth does amazing things to an organization, and one of the things that it has forced us to do is broaden our universe," Esparza says. "If we relied on looking only at technology companies, we would never even get close to hiring the number of people that we need. So now we're going to automotive companies. We're going to consumer-goods companies. We're going to aircraft manufacturers. One of the biases that we've had to get over is the idea that people have to have computer-related experience to be successful here."

Dave Allen, 39, is a great recent example. Before coming in as vice president of worldwide operations, he was an expert in chips -- of the potato kind. He worked for Frito-Lay. "He told me that he was responsible for the manufacturing and shipment of 40 million bags of chips a day," Esparza says. "He has an amazing understanding of distribution, which is a big part of our business."

Dell can teach its new executives the nuances of the computer industry. But one thing that it can't teach them is how to be effective within Dell's dynamic environment. Fortunately, Esparza knows which skills, qualities, and experiences they'll need to succeed. After reviewing the performance ratings and compensation levels of Dell vice presidents and directors who were hired over a recent three-year period, Esparza and his recruiters now know who has been successful, and why. They also interviewed the bosses of those executives who hadn't advanced or who had left the company. Using the results of that research, Dell identified five core competencies for executive hires: the ability to learn fast; to thrive in a changing environment; to deliver results; to solve problems; and to build teams.

Dell recruiters, along with outside search firms and assessment agencies, use these criteria to decide who gets flown to Austin and who is worth courting over time. For in-person interviews, executives and recruiters distribute responsibility for the five competencies among themselves so that each competency is covered thoroughly. They ask questions that require candidates to tell rich anecdotes that are based on personal experience: When in your career have you quickly built something substantial from scratch? What would you do if you encountered this problem at Dell?

Esparza wants details, substance. "I asked someone that question the other day, and he said, 'Well, at my last company, I was asked to start an operation in Singapore, and when I got there, it was just me and my secretary. In 18 months, we grew it to $100 million a year,' " Esparza says. "Now, that's a great answer."