Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2015; calling Elon Musk “the new Steve Jobs” and the most brilliant mind alive is the author’s opinion at that time, and Tony Hsieh stepped down as Zappos CEO in 2020 and died later that year.
Although the résumé is still a valid tool for hiring, the truth is that when we talk about certain companies, its importance takes a back seat. All the more so if you ask people like Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk or Brian Tracy.
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), during his talk in Barcelona, spoke about his number one hiring rule, and although I personally doubt that Zuckerberg applies it, the truth is that putting it into practice for real could produce surprising results.
Zuckerberg said:
“I only hire someone to work for me if I think I would like to work under that person.”
What does that mean exactly? He explains that “in an alternate universe, if things were different and I hadn’t started my own company, or if Facebook disappeared one day and I had to look for a job, I should be delighted to be hired by this person who is fighting for me to hire them to work for me.”
Put more simply: hire someone you wouldn’t mind having as your boss. With these words, Zuckerberg is suggesting that he admires a person’s leadership ability, bearing in mind that leaders (at least good leaders) are respectful and have integrity, and think more about the team and the company than about themselves. They are passionate about what they do.
And the truth is that, whatever position you hold in a company, that leadership ability is valued by human resources departments.
Richard Branson (Virgin) is also clear that “you shouldn’t hire a résumé; you have to hire personality.”
And he admits that personality is the hardest thing to detect in a job interview, because a candidate could be shy or introverted and have a great personality. Equally, they could be a very outgoing person who is a little inhibited during the few minutes the interview lasts.
“Don’t be afraid to hire ‘mavericks’, people who think very differently, who can help you see problems as opportunities and inspire the team’s creativity. Some of the best workers we have hired were people who at first didn’t seem to fit into a team, but in the end became indispensable to the team and to the company.”
Branson also pointed out that you shouldn’t rush to fill a position until you find exactly what you are looking for, because “it’s better to have a hole in your team than to have an idiot in your company.”
Try to surround yourself with people who have a winning personality and transferable skills.
For Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, the most important thing is people’s human value. He says that companies today are so focused on attracting talent and skills that they forget to hire people who, above all, behave like people, and whom we enjoy spending time with.
That’s why this CEO designed a kind of test which, while passing it doesn’t guarantee you the job, rules you out 100% if you fail it.
Since most applicants for a job at Zappos come from out of town, the company has its own transport to pick them up at the airport and give them a tour of the city before the job interviews begin.
At the end of the day, the recruiter always asks the driver how the applicant treated him. If the driver says he wasn’t treated kindly, the person’s talent or skills don’t matter. It doesn’t matter how the interview went. The applicant will be ruled out immediately.
“A person may be nervous on the day of the interview. They may make mistakes, be more restless and even seem more insecure. But there is never an excuse for being discourteous or rude to anyone,” says Hsieh, whether that’s the driver or the waiter serving you.
Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX…), the new Steve Jobs, on the other hand, doesn’t care so much about what people are like as about what they can do. Musk lives in a reality in which he knows he is changing the world, and so he only wants people with the fervent courage and commitment to change the world.
Musk is probably not the nicest man around, as several accounts have argued, but there is no doubt that he is probably the most brilliant mind alive today.
His number one hiring rule is to hire the best in the world at their job. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an engineer or a waiter. If someone is going to work for him, that person has to be the best at what they do.
That obsession with hiring the best is why his company poached an employee from Pinkberry, because he was the best at making frozen yogurt and ice cream. Musk said: “I want the employee of the month.”
Musk asks job applicants this simple question:
“Of all the people in the world, of the millions of candidates who could do this job, convince me that you are the one I need.”
For this young genius, your work matters to the company whether you are a cook, a street sweeper or you design a rocket. That’s why you have to be the best at it.
Elon Musk’s culture can be summed up as “hire the best, not the cheapest.”
Brian Tracy is even clearer about it when he talks about hiring the best salespeople. Like many other business owners who see sales as a professional career and not a pastime, the only thing he makes sure of is that the candidate at least has a constant interest in learning the profession.
How do you find that out? By asking the candidate a simple question.
“Of the books in your personal library, which are your favourite books on selling?”
If the salesperson hesitated or didn’t have any sales books, the interview was over before it began. If the salesperson showed they were an avid reader of sales books, they almost always got the job, because even if they weren’t good yet, they were interested, and with interest they could become good.
See also: 6 tips for passing a job interview, explained by Google’s head of people operations
Featured image: Robert Scoble, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
