Mark Zuckerberg asks only one question when he is looking to hire a new employee, and it's one tough call for anyone who is seeking a position where the Facebook founder and CEO is involved in hiring.
"Would I be happy if I worked for you?"
Speaking in front of a live audience during a question-and-answer session at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the 30-year-old billionaire said the only thing he looked for in a prospective Facebook employee is if he would be happy working for that person.
"I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person," said Zuckerberg. "It's a pretty good test and I think this rule has served me well. I think as long as you have that as your rule for picking the people you work with, you're not going to go wrong."
Zuckerberg, who has a net worth of $35 billion, said the company looks for individuals who share the same values Facebook has. Although the company's outrageous benefits, from the gym memberships to the free food and snacks, attract many a job-seeker, its founder says Facebook is "not for everyone in the world."
One person who had to go through Zuckerberg's one-question interview and clearly made it through is Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer and considered one of the most influential women in the industry. Zuckerberg himself, who said Sandberg was an instrumental part in building Facebook as a business and a "healthy organization," handpicked her for the position.
He also said Facebook does not have plans to expand its existing workforce of around 10,000 technical and non-technical employees. Unlike other major Internet players such as Google, which has around 50,000 workers, Facebook is devoted to focusing its energies on hiring only a few of the most highly qualified people available.
"The most important thing is to keep your team as small as possible," Zuckerberg said. "[Facebook] serves more than a billion people around the world but our team has fewer than 10,000 people. It's only possible because of modern technology. Big companies get bloated."
Asked about what advice he has to give to everyone out there looking for employment or perhaps wanting to start their own startup, Zuckerberg had this to say:
"Don't discount yourself, no matter what you're doing. Everyone has a unique perspective that they can bring to the world."
He also discounted the common perspective that young job-seekers or entrepreneurs do not have the experience to offer something remarkable to the world and reminded everyone that he wasn't even out of his teens when he started Facebook, a company now worth $222 billion. Zuckerberg is now the 16th richest person in the world, according to Forbes.
Photo: Jason McElweenie | Flickr
