How do you determine whether a candidate has the needed skills for a job?

Skills are pretty easy to determine. One of the things I pride myself on, for better or for worse, is that I am an extremely technologically literate chief information officer. I'll ask candidates about a pretty complex problem having to do with their domain. I'll see in conversation how they take it apart and analyze it. That will tell me their skill level.

What about cultural fit? How do you assess that?

Cultural fit is an unscientific gut feel. I determine a candidate's cultural fit by spending some quality time with the person — ideally at lunch and out of the office. Hearing them talk about how they view the world, what excites them, what their hopes and aspirations are. How comfortable are they with themselves? How honestly can they have that conversation with me?

How do you go about interviewing candidates for IT positions? What is your typical process?

We include a lot of people in the process, so a candidate may go through anywhere from 12 to 20 interviews. Everybody in the work group that the person will be working with has a chance to interview the candidate. For some roles, like the liaison roles within our project teams and project management office, candidates will also interview with HBS employees outside of IT. There will be some panels, some one-on-ones. There will be people who are interviewing with more of a focus on culture fit and others who will be interviewing with more of a focus on whether the candidates really have the skills their résumés say they have. There will be interviews that focus on a candidate's problem-solving abilities. All of the interviews are pretty casual so they will be conversationally based. Feedback is then given to the hiring manager.

This is a lot of interviews. How long does this take?

We try and keep this to no more than three visits over a two to three week period. But a single day can include eight to 10 interviews. Some one-on-one and some with two people.

Do the members of your staff have a significant say in who their new boss or manager might be, or do you include them in the process just so they get to know who that person is?

Their input matters. I'm not a big fan of "gratuitous inclusion." Everyone's input has weight, and that helps build trust among the team. That doesn't mean we always have 100 percent consensus on candidates, because we don't. We are not looking for 100 percent consensus. When we do have consensus, those are wonderful moments, but if you have a team where everyone is saying no for whatever reason, as the chief information officer, you have to respect that.

What do you consider a successful hire?

A successful hire is someone who comes onboard, and after being here three to four months, you think the person's been here for five years. You just believe they have always been here and they are a natural part of the team. They are happy, productive and one of the team doing a great job.

Looking back on all the interviews you have conducted, do any make you say "What was I thinking?"

One where I was the interviewee stands out. Shortly after I joined a company, my boss was dismissed. I went out for a run at lunch and bumped into the chairman of the board, who asked to go running with me. At about mile one he said, "So, why do I pay you?" So from mile one to mile five, we had an interview and by mile five I still had a job. It was the most stressful interview of my life.

The oddest interview I conducted was when I interviewed someone who really thought he should be doing my job. He made that extremely clear in the interview. During the interview, he was talking about "our partnership" and he was expressing his goals and objectives as a partner without having the presence of mind to understand what my objectives were for the team. I should have seen that he was more interested in my job by looking at his résumé more carefully. Actually, if I recall, I think I did see it, and I shouldn't have gone forward with the interview. But, again, his résumé was very tempting.

Hiring managers often want ambitious candidates. Why did that particular candidate not work out?

The individual did not want the job for which they were interviewing; they wanted my job that day. I actually want people who have the ambition to go as far as their interests and talents take them. I'm suspect of someone who comes in and says, "I want to do this job and in six years I want to be chief information officer of the Harvard Business School." On the other hand, I'm really supportive of somebody who says, "I want to come in, I want to learn and I want to grow. Certainly I want to manage people and technology and I want to see where that takes me."

Next: Laster's biggest hiring mistake and how he builds trust among his team.