Comments on: Best Buy University

By: Tracy Bains

Tracy Bains — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:31:20 +0000

Pierre Ouillet and I don’t run in the same circles. At Best Buy Canada’s corporate headquarters, I was among 1000+ employees. I worked there for five years and we never spoke to each other.

Since I started at UBC on March 9, 2009, I have been in Pierre Ouillet’s presence precisely twice: once at a morning meeting where I earned a quick nod when introduced as a former Best Buy employee and once when he updated AAPS members on the state of UBC’s financial affairs. Once again, I was one of the many, anonymous faces in the crowd. To my knowledge, I have had no further interaction with Pierre Ouillet during the last 18 months.

I despise cronyism. Likewise, I have no respect for those who cast aspersions on another’s reputation for sport. You have no proof that I didn’t earn my position. Instead, you’ve weaved together an entertaining thread that makes me guilty by association.

I submitted an application just like every other candidate. I interviewed just like all the others shortlisted. I sent in work samples as requested. I provided three work references–none of them being Pierre Ouillet.

I got this position based on my skills and for no other reason. I have maintained my position because of my skills and for no other reason.

If you have proof to the contrary, please produce it.

I’ll be waiting.

Tracy

By: Charles Menzies

Charles Menzies — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:57:38 +0000

What bears closer examination is the extent to which such hiring practice accurately reflect a further drift toward transforming UBC into a corporate agency that acts more like a private enterprise than a public institution.

Related to this is a UBC Financial Services practice of apparently not hiring summer replacement workers in key areas. The result is an annual summer backlog of processing payments which ends up in having faculty with research budgets either fronting expenses or carrying credit card interest payments.

UBC thus is able to adopt a classic business practice of transferring the cost of business onto the people who work for them, perhaps even make a bit of money through investing research dollars (perhaps, one never knows) in the bargain.

By: Pierre Ouillet

Pierre Ouillet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:52:16 +0000

Interesting post. Equal opportunities are absolutely paramount and any hiring in my porfolio (that would apply to Dennis Silva and Michael Shakespeare) has followed the rigourous and transparent process of public posting and competitive interviewing. At the end of the day, these were the few areas were we did not feel we had the right internal talent within the University. Sadly, there a very few large, world-class corporate organizations in BC, so it is not that surprising that top corporate talent on the administrative side would often come from the like of Best Buy or Telus for example. In both cases, the candidates that we hired have started to deliver against some very high expectations, and they are really helping us take UBC to the next level in terms of technology and procurement best practices, which is what we owe to students and other stakeholders.
At the same time, we are continuing to promote from within as often as possible (all my direct reports except for my assistant were internal UBC promotions – I was very, very lucky to find such talent in house). We are also increasingly looking to hire UBC Grads, particular from Sauder, whenever possible.
As a final comment, it feels really good to see top talent interested to move from the private sector to UBC. The difficult economic environment is a factor, but so is UBC’s increasingly reputation as an exciting, fast-moving and world-class place to work and grow.
Ze VP

By: Alex Lougheed

Alex Lougheed — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:03:36 +0000

You can also win best buy gift certificates by taking some IT surveys!

http://www.it.ubc.ca/contests.html

It’s all about the synergies.