The CIO of Ameristar Casinos Likes to Gamble, But Not When It Comes to Hiring
Sheleen Quish has hired her share of risky candidates. Sometimes they've worked. Other times they haven't. Overall, her approach to hiring is methodical and pragmatic, and the risks she takes are always calculated.
Fri, August 15, 2008
CIO — Sheleen Quish has a keen eye for hiring talented people. In fact, she once hired an assistant who later made a name for himself on TV. True story.
Another time, she took a risk on a woman who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. Where other, less-enlightened hiring managers would have dismissed the woman as a job seeker who just needed health insurance, Quish saw an individual with unique talents, and she hired the woman on the spot. Quish says this woman has since gone on to become CEO of several companies.
Quish has perfected her hiring practices and interviewing techniques over the years. After making a few hiring mistakes early on in her career, Quish began to give serious thought to hiring and interviewing. "I became a conscious student of what I wanted to accomplish with each hire I made," she says.
Today, Quish's approach to hiring is organized, methodical, sensible and pragmatic—much like she is. It's also fun. Wining and dining candidates is a good way to figure out who they really are and to assess their cultural fit.
Quish's approach to hiring is informed by the fact that she's recently been on both sides of the interview table. After leaving U.S. Can in 2005, she struggled to find a new CIO job in spite of her leadership abilities and experience. When she landed at Ameristar Casinos, where she currently serves as CIO, her first order of business was staffing the IT department with the right skills. Today, her IT organization consists of 85 full-time employees, consultants and vendors.
Quish's realistic attitude toward staffing and hiring is also informed by her professional experience. Prior to Ameristar Casinos, she was CIO of manufacturer U.S. Can Corp. She has held executive-level marketing and operations positions in the insurance industry. She's consulted with established firms and on her own. She's seen and done it all. Nothing fazes Sheleen Quish.
Which is why you should heed the advice she dishes to job seekers and hiring managers in this Q&A. You'll learn how to effectively interview with CIOs and other high-ranking executives, how Quish sizes up candidates' fitness for a job in her organization, and her perspective on when to be a leader and when to seek consensus on hiring decisions.
John Lamar: What staffing challenges does your IT organization face?
Sheleen Quish: When I joined about a year ago, I inherited a team of people at corporate and a loose affiliation of IT professionals within the properties. They all kind of did their own thing from an IT perspective, primarily because they were a product of multiple acquisitions over the years. Standardizing processes had not been a priority for them. My first goal was to get the corporate team right-sized with the appropriate skill-base and then to start focusing on re-engaging the properties. We have accomplished this, and it is really working well. We are now viewed as one large global resource and are able to leverage people, skills and capabilities from anywhere within the department, which has created exciting opportunities for the team. There is truly a sense of enthusiasm and energy within the department, and it has allowed us to be a lot more productive.
Recently the company went through a significant downsizing. The casino industry is not recession-proof. The downsizing has not affected my department as much because I have not been filling open positions. I have been around the block a few times, and I saw what was coming with the economy.
What the downsizing has done is make every single hire and every single person that we retain mission critical. There is no room for fluff. There is no room for someone who does not give 100 percent, and there is no room for someone who is not a team player.
How do you determine whether a candidate has the right skill set and would be a good cultural fit with your group?
I have no IT training. I have an operations and business background. I usually rely on my team to help me evaluate candidates. Personally, if I am hiring for a highly technical position, even though I have gotten smarter over the years, I am not going to be the one administering a technical test or giving the candidate the third degree on Microsoft. I will rely on my team to help me with that.
Cultural fit is extremely important at Ameristar. The two key issues for us are 1) Do you fit the culture? and 2) Can you do the work? I spend a good portion of my assessment time trying to evaluate these two issues. What is the candidate's communication style? What are their values? What is their concept of how IT fits into the business?
