Mark Zuckerberg reveals the 'secret test' he uses to find out if he's hiring the right candidate
Facebook has been around for exactly two decades now. The social media company, which became a worldwide sensation in 2006, now falls under the parent organization, Meta, which also runs a host of applications like Instagram and WhatsApp, as per Bloomberg. From only being limited to Harvard students to penetrating every corner of the world, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has changed the course of modern lives with his ideas. Naturally, being a part of his multi-billion-dollar franchise is more of a far-fetched dream for most. But he once opened up about the secret tactic he applies to filter out potential hires from a crowd of candidates, per The Independent.
The 40-year-old businessman has about 70,000 employees working for him as full-time employees, according to a December 2023 report by Backlinko. When asked about the qualities he looks for in a new hire, Zuckerberg revealed a particular “test” that convinces him whether the hire is fit for the job. "I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person. It's a pretty good test,” the billionaire said during a business “town hall” meeting held in Barcelona in 2015. The application of this strategy helped him rope in one of the most famous technology executives in the world, and the most famous woman in the tech industry, Sheryl Sandberg, whom the CEO considers to be a mentor, the source claimed.
At the time, Zuckerberg disclosed that Facebook housed a relatively smaller team of 10,000 or less despite serving billions across the world. While that number has grown six times, he has barely altered his approach to hiring new professionals. He reiterated this hiring philosophy in a conversation with the Recode Decode podcast in 2018. He emphasized that he looks for mentors in his employees and hailed his employees as a “gift.”
“I always tell people that you should only hire people to be on your team if you would work for them,” Zuckerberg continued. “But in an alternate universe, I would be honored to work for any of these people. I think that that is, I don’t know, that is a greater gift than having some external mentors who I get to talk to once a quarter.” The tech mogul referred to Bill Gates as one of his mentors and inspiration too. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Meta CEO also shared the most important thing that that ensures a career in his company. “Learning how to think critically and learning values when you’re young” is crucial to taking on challenges unknown to a person, the mogul explained to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang in July 2024.
Zuckerberg noted that if people can demonstrate that they can dig deeper and commit to doing a particular task, well enough to master it, then they have gained experience in the art of learning. This art is of supreme importance when working for Zuckerberg at Meta, he said. He also instanced his own daughter, who was apparently writing a novel about mermaid crystals, and used artificial intelligence to generate images for the book. But if you are dreaming of getting hired for Meta, the chances are slim as the CEO has vowed to limit his hiring plans, keeping it “relatively minimal”, per Business Insider.