All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Lydia: Welcome to the All In Recruitment podcast by Manatal, where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for more weekly episodes.
I'm your host, Lydia, and this week we have Delfina Stabile of Capital One Mexico. A pleasure to have you with us today, Delfina. Good evening.
Delfina: Good evening. It's my pleasure to be here and thank you so much for inviting me.
Scaling Teams at Uber, CloudKitchens, and Capital One
Lydia: So tell us about your journey in the talent space, Delfina. Are there specific reasons you're still in it?
Delfina: Well, my experience started back in Argentina. I'm originally from Buenos Aires. In Buenos Aires, I gained more consulting experience. I worked for two different recruiting firms and agencies, doing more high-volume recruiting and then executive search.
Then I moved to Mexico back in 2017 when I started my trajectory in the tech industry, leading recruiting teams. I moved to Mexico for Uber and ended up spending five years there. For the first three years, I was based in Mexico, leading recruiting teams for Latin America. Then, in my last two years, I worked for the global recruiting operations team—first, focusing on strategy and planning projects and programs, and then, in my final role, leading the global employer brand team in San Francisco.
After leaving Uber, I joined CloudKitchens, where I spent two years in two different roles—first leading the global recruiting team and then leading all top-of-funnel efforts, including employer branding and sourcing for the two lines of business we had at the company.
Currently, I'm working at Capital One, leading tech recruiting efforts for Mexico.
What I would say is, that the reason I joined recruiting, and the reason I've stayed, is that I really enjoy building teams from scratch, scaling teams, and growing operations. That has been a common denominator in my experiences. At Uber, the company was in expansion, and Uber Eats was growing in Latin America when I joined. At CloudKitchens, we were expanding globally, so I had to scale teams worldwide. And at Capital One, I had to launch the tech hub in Mexico from scratch. When I joined, there were only four people. Now, we're 150.
Lydia: That's a huge one. In what kind of time frame are we talking about?
Delfina: I joined seven months ago. So I would say roughly a little bit over six months. So yes, that's what I like. I like scaling, and I like to have aggressive hiring targets and to make sure that I reach those goals, and typically, being really close to the business and a really thoughtful partner to the business for them to reach their goals through its people.
How Brand Recognition Shapes Hiring Strategies
Lydia: What is the mindset that you bring to a demanding role? It’s undoubtedly challenging, and there are obstacles to overcome. What kind of mindset do you adopt when approaching roles or responsibilities like this?
Delfina: I would say I'm very competitive, and I'm really data-driven. I like to have super concrete and clear goals and work toward those. What I would say is that I really enjoy building teams and making them highly productive, which isn't always easy. It's very different depending on whether you're inheriting a team or building one from scratch. But either way—whether inheriting or building—making sure that you create a highly productive team is what I enjoy the most.
I really like leading teams and ensuring that you build a great culture—one that balances competition with data-driven goals. I think it's a mix of different factors that help a team reach its goals, but the most important thing is making sure they actually want to get there. I focus the most on setting the vision and ensuring that everyone is aligned on hitting that hiring target. They need to see and understand the goal, so we work together to define that goal and target as a team.
Lydia: What are some of the recruitment goals that you're currently focusing on, specifically for tech recruitment within Mexico?
Delfina: So, Capital One is a leading digital banking firm in the U.S., and we have really aggressive growth goals. By hiring only in the U.S., we wouldn’t be able to meet those goals, so we had to think about an expansion strategy and a more international approach to ensure we hit our targets. That’s where Mexico came in.
Factors like time zone, talent level, and proximity made Mexico a great market for us to launch and start investing in its talent. So basically, what we’re doing is building a tech hub that will lead and launch products end-to-end from Mexico for the U.S.
Lydia: So what sort of sourcing strategies do you find is most effective when you're hiring specialized talent in Mexico?
Delfina: I think more than just sourcing strategies, what’s unique about what I’m working on right now or what was unique to CloudKitchens back in the day, is that if you don’t have strong brand recognition, sourcing becomes even more critical. I’ve worked with big brands like Uber, where you get a lot of organic applicants and inbound candidates. In that case, most of your hiring comes from those sources. But at CloudKitchens, and now at Capital One, you almost fully rely on outbound sourcing.
So I think sourcing becomes your bread and butter, you need to do it well.
What’s really important is not just having a strong recruiting function but also a dedicated sourcing function. You need people focused on lead generation and driving qualified leads so that recruiters can focus on what they do best—guiding candidates through the process, enhancing the candidate experience, and closing hires.
What I would say is unique to what I’m building is the need for a strong sourcing function and a good ratio between sourcers and recruiters to hit hiring targets. Everything starts with the top of the funnel—if you don’t have that, you’ll never get the hires you need.
When it comes to techniques, there are many different sourcing strategies and platforms. In Mexico, LinkedIn is the main platform we use. We’re trying to be really open in our approach by sourcing talent across the entire country and offering relocation to Mexico City. We don’t just focus on one area—we proactively seek the best talent nationwide.
But ultimately, more than the channels, platforms, or specific strategies, what’s key is maintaining the right balance between sourcers and recruiters. That’s what ensures you generate the right volume at the top of the funnel, which then converts into actual hires.
Why Splitting Recruiting and Sourcing Drives Better Hiring
Lydia: What is the main advantage of splitting that function from source and recruitment?
Delfina: If you don’t split the recruiting function, you have different sources of hires—applicants, outbound sourcing, referrals, internal applicants, events, and more. But when you’re positioning and launching a brand for the first time, you don’t have internal applicants yet because the company is brand new. You also don’t have as many referrals because there aren’t enough employees inside the company yet. So, you fully rely on sourcing.
The recruiter doesn’t have the time to source at the necessary volume while also pushing candidates through the pipeline. By splitting these functions, you ensure that there’s a dedicated team producing the volume needed at the top of the funnel to hit hiring targets.
And of course, the math you always have to do is reverse funnel-based. You start with your hiring target, then factor in pass rates. When you’re just starting out and don’t have historical data, this can be more complex. But as soon as you reach critical mass in the pipeline and gather historical data, it becomes easier to refine the funnel and determine how many candidates you need at the top to meet your hiring goals.
Lydia: Putting up the technical roles, how do you balance that and evaluating technical skills while maintaining that ideal candidate experience?
Delfina: I think technical skills are something you can’t be flexible on—that’s where everything starts. So I would say technical skills are the most important factor, especially when you have a high bar for talent. At Capital One, we do have a high bar, and our process includes several technical assessments that are critical. If someone doesn’t have the necessary technical skills, they won’t pass those assessments.
So it all starts there—with defining the tech stack you’re looking for, the programming skills you need, and how you source for those specific qualifications. The quality of sourcing at the top of the funnel is key, and that’s where recruiters and sourcers need to work closely with hiring managers. They have to be well-calibrated to understand exactly what they’re looking for and ensure they’re sourcing candidates with the right keywords and programming skills.
Once candidates move through the funnel, candidate experience becomes really important. Our hiring process is standardized and straightforward, so candidates know exactly what to expect at each stage. What’s most important for technical talent in this process is preparing them well for each stage they’ll go through.
In Mexico, coding assessments aren’t a widespread practice, but we have a major coding assessment that serves as a key filter before candidates even reach the interview stage. Because of that, my reviewers spend a lot of time preparing candidates—explaining what will happen, how much time they’ll have, what the platform looks like, and how they can practice beforehand. We ensure they have enough time to prepare.
Then, once candidates reach the interview stage, we conduct a "Power Day" with four interviews—some technical, some not. We place extra emphasis on prepping candidates for the technical interviews, ensuring they feel well-equipped and set up for success.
So, when it comes to candidate experience, the most important thing is guiding them properly—setting clear expectations and making sure they’re fully prepared for the technical assessments.
Managing Salary Expectations in a Competitive Market
Lydia: We’re talking about specialized talent, very rare and hard to find. So, what are some ways recruiters can approach or even manage salary expectations in a highly competitive job market?
Delfina: I would say that Mexico has been booming for the past couple of years, so it’s a really competitive market. Something unique to Mexico is the pay spread—the variation within compensation packages. We have local companies, foreign companies operating in Mexico, and U.S. companies hiring remotely and paying fully in U.S. dollars, often with candidates benefiting from not paying taxes, etc.
What I always tell my recruiters is that they need to be really flexible and first understand both their own position and the candidate’s current situation—what their main drivers are. One key difference between Mexico and other countries, like the U.S., is how candidates think about compensation. In the U.S., candidates focus on total compensation—they evaluate the mix of cash and equity, and they consider annual cash, total cash, signing bonuses, base salary, and target annual bonuses as part of the bigger picture.
In Mexico, however, people care more about monthly liquidity. They prioritize base salary and monthly income over the total annual package. So, we need to factor that in when structuring offers—understanding when it makes sense to offer a signing bonus versus increasing base salary, or when to be more aggressive with one while adjusting the other.
Ultimately, flexibility is key. It’s about understanding what the candidate currently has and what drives them—whether it’s immediate cash, monthly income, annual income, or a long-term mix of cash and equity. While we always maintain pay parity among engineers within the company, we remain flexible in structuring offers that align with each candidate’s specific situation.
Lydia: How do you keep up with the needs of the business? At this point, it's scaling. Once you've reached that point where you've done all the mass hiring needed, how do you keep up? How do you adapt to the changing needs of the business?
Delfina: The needs are constantly changing. Some things you can predict, and some you can't. What I always like to have is a buffer. You'll never have a firm number, but at least having a ballpark figure and knowing the right number to work with is crucial.
There are three things I always focus on.
One is capacity. You need the right team size to hit the target, and you determine that capacity based on historical data—looking at pass rates and team productivity from past months. Adding capacity is critical, and it's something I've been focusing on since joining the team, ensuring we have the right number of recruiters.
The second is activity. When relying on sourcing, you need the right numbers at the top of the funnel. The activity driven by recruiters is essential.
The third, and most important, is pass rates—the actual productivity and efficiency throughout the funnel. We always work within these three factors: ensuring we have the right capacity, maintaining the right activity levels, and continuously improving pass rates to reach the desired efficiency and productivity.
Balancing Automation with Human Connection in Recruiting
Lydia: How do you see the role of recruiters evolving in the next five years? It's already starting to evolve with AI and automation, but how do you foresee the role changing or developing?
Delfina: For recruiting, and maybe this is a perspective from Latin America, we firmly believe in personal connections. Technology can change certain aspects of recruiting, but some things will remain constant. Recruiters are becoming more tech-savvy and accustomed to using different technologies. When I started in recruiting a few years ago, tools like ChatGPT weren't available. Recently, when interviewing new recruiters, many mentioned using ChatGPT to stay updated on market and industry trends, sourcing strategies, and candidate searches—something I had never seen before.
Recruiters are increasingly integrating new technologies into their processes—identifying candidates, selecting keywords, and optimizing sourcing strategies. However, recruiting will always require human interaction and connection. While automation tools streamline and scale processes, a recruiter must still engage with candidates, understand their motivations, and effectively communicate the offer.
The role is constantly evolving, with significantly more technology available than when I entered the field. Adaptability is key—leveraging technology for sourcing, applicant tracking systems (ATS), candidate management, employer branding, and video content. There are countless tools that can enhance the recruiting funnel, but the core role of a recruiter remains the same: establishing connections with candidates and bridging the gap between their motivations and the opportunities available.
Lydia: Finally, Delfina, what advice would you give someone starting out in the recruitment space today?
Delfina: I think they need to really understand the recruiting funnel. When I joined Uber, I realized it was all about the funnel and the numbers—ultimately, recruiting is a numbers game. That’s the main message I would give recruiters. Yes, establishing connections and conducting interviews are essential, but at its core, recruiting is about the numbers. I have a psychology background, so initially, I approached it from a soft skills perspective. But once I understood the data-driven aspect, it all made sense—tracking numbers, analyzing the funnel, and working backward to reach hiring goals.
My advice is to be curious. Always ask questions and learn from your candidates. Now that I’m in tech recruiting, I often hear that tech recruiting is very different. But if you are a good recruiter, you can succeed in both tech and non-tech roles. Yes, tech hiring can be challenging, but a great recruiter can adapt and learn. There are many ways to gain knowledge about different roles—whether in tech or other fields. Ask questions, engage with candidates, and take every opportunity to learn from them.
Recruiting is a craft you develop over time through conversations with candidates and hiring managers. Ultimately, though, it all comes back to the funnel and the numbers. Being data-driven is crucial for success in recruitment.
Lydia: Thank you so much, Delfina, for your time and insights. This has been a wonderful conversation. For those listening who might want to continue the discussion, where can they get in touch with you?
Delfina: They can find me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/delfinastabile. Additionally, if they are interested in opportunities at Capital One, they can visit Capital One Careers at capitalonecareers.com/mexico.
Lydia: Thank you again, Delfina. We have been in conversation with Delfina Stabille of Capital One Mexico. Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe to stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All In Recruitment.
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