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Thank you for taking the time to interview at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and for posting a review of your interview experience. Your review helps us identify the areas where we may need improvement. Our goal is to have an organized and streamlined process from start to finish, with an open line of communication between the hiring manager, recruiter, Travel Office and other parties involved in each candidate’s interview process. On site interviews for out of town candidates typically occur without any issues—hotel and airline reservations are clear and seamless, an itinerary for the day is sent to everyone involved, all parties are present on the day of the interview, etc. Unfortunately it seems that St. Jude fell short on all some of these fronts when it came to your interview, and for that we are sorry.
We would like to address your concerns regarding the general lack of interview question preparation on the part of your interviewers the day you were here at St Jude. Our Talent Acquisition and Learning & Development teams offer interview training to any person or group on campus that requests that service. General interview training is something that is being built into our new manager training process as initiated by our CEO, Dr. James Downing. Prior to this overhaul of the management training system, we offered quarterly classes to managers interested in learning more about interviewing. Based on your feedback, we will continue to work to ensure that every interview, no matter how quickly it is scheduled, is conducted using thoughtful and relevant interview questions.
At St. Jude we pride ourselves on not “power playing” by parading white coats around. One example of this is our lack of physician lounges, or a separate cafeteria for our doctors. We want all of our employees to be connected to the mission of St. Jude, so we all share a cafeteria, doctors, patients, and other employees alike. We encourage you and our Glassdoor readers to assume the best of intentions in this regard. Humility is important at a children’s hospital, ours is no exception, and intimidation leads nowhere, especially in this instance where we are looking to make our esteemed interview candidate feel at home and welcome here.
Your concern regarding our reference checking process is valid. We understand how many of our job candidates are currently gainfully employed elsewhere and we would not want our reference checking process to unduly harm their status or reputation in their current position. As such, reference checks are an important part of our selection process. We want to stress to our candidates that they simply need to communicate their concerns regarding reference checking, and the reason behind their concerns, to their recruiter. In regard to your comment on the online reference checking process to be easy to “fake,” St. Jude uses a well-established online system that detects nuances in the responses or the references entered that indicate foul play. The system then flags the reference for the recruiter and hiring manager. We found that providing references the opportunity to respond anonymously elicits more useful feedback about our candidates. We appreciate you taking the time to submit references into our system and we are sorry that you had to go back and explain the situation to your colleagues.
St. Jude strives to stay as far away as possible from the adjective “egotistical.” We never want employees to be or even perceive that they are treated “lousy,” and we do not use our position as one of the Best Places to Work in the nation as an opportunity to pick and choose the most malleable pushovers to hire to our team. We want strong, independent thinkers that will bring new ideas and fresh perspectives. Our quarterly Town Hall meetings with Dr. Downing and the resulting changes in the organization are a testament to how we want our employees to feel about their work and their value to St. Jude. We understand that we are competing for the best and the brightest candidates and know it can be a huge sacrifice for many of our candidates to pack up their families and move to Memphis. The last thing we would want to do is make someone feel that they are not respected or valued.
Again, we deeply appreciate your feedback regarding your lack of satisfaction with even the travel reimbursement part of our process. We wish you the best and will do everything we can to make the experience better for our future candidates.
