for IT jobs?
Typically at the senior level in the organization, they tend to be individual interviews. We do give guidelines, such as focus on what the candidate has done, where the candidate has worked previously, try to get a sense of how the chemistry would work and how the candidate would fit with what we do. It is not unusual for a director-level candidate to go through six to eight interviews. At that level, we also have them interviewed by the people who will be reporting to them, so the managers who work for the directors actually have a say in who their boss is going to be. It can get a little awkward if the manager believes that he or she is capable of doing the director's job, but if that's the case, the manager is perfectly free to apply for the job and they'll go through the same process that everybody else goes through.
When you interview candidates from other industries, what do you look for?
I look for two things. One, I look for successful work experience. It really does not help me to know that you have worked for XYZ Company. I want to know what you did at XYZ Company. I want to know what you accomplished.
The second thing is how you work in a team-oriented environment. M.D. Anderson is not a place for people who think they have all the answers or who think they are going to be the critical kingpin to get a project done. I sometimes draw an organizational chart of the IT organization that shows the customers at the top and the CIO at the bottom to get people's attention. That chart shows that the most important component of what we do is customer service. We look for people who understand customer service because we have very challenging customers. I can't imagine a more challenging group of customers than physicians who deal with life-and-death decisions, who are on the cutting edge of research, who are under significant pressure to publish and to do research because they work in an academic environment as well as provide clinical care. These are very stressful environments, so you want a team of people who know how to move problems along, focus on customers and communicate with colleagues.
Do you include M.D. Anderson employees from outside IT in your IT recruiting process?
Yes, typically at the director level (which are my direct reports) because they work so closely with the business side of the house and at the manager level. When we seek to hire a new director, for example in financial services, we have a group called Administration & Financial Services that will be part of the recruiting process. We hired a new director for that position a year and a half ago. He went through a very rigorous interview process, not only with the people who would become his peers in IT (other directors) but with vice presidents and the chief financial officer. At the end of that process, we contacted them directly and collected their input on what they thought about the candidate.
Who was the first person you ever hired? What company were you working for and in what capacity?
When I was in high school and college, I ran a house painting business. The first person I hired was a buddy that worked for me in the house painting business. When I got out of graduate school and got into the real world of work, the first people I hired tended to be administrative support staff.
Did you receive training on how to hire early on in your career
No.
What did you base your hiring decisions on then? Do you use the same approach today?
I tended to hire people whom I thought could do the job, and I erred on the side of giving people the opportunity to prove themselves. For example, we would go through the interview
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