What’s Mark Zuckerberg’s One Rule When Hiring?

Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, disclosed his one rule to employing staff to work for him at Facebook. During a question and answer session at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Zuckerberg revealed an interesting strategy that allows him to choose the perfect candidate.

Zuckerberg said, “I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person. It’s a pretty good test and I think this rule has served me well.”

Mark Zuckerberg topped the world’s top 10 richest individuals under 40 and is also the world’s 16th richest person. However, the 30-year-old multi-billionaire intimated that his success was all done to self-belief.

“The most important thing is to just have faith in yourself and trust yourself. When you’re young, you hear that you don’t have experience to do things, that there are people that have more experience than you.”

Mark Zuckerberg also encouraged others that self-belief is the key to success. “Don’t discount yourself, no matter what you’re doing,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg’s social media empire, which includes Facebook and Instagram, pushed him to unrivaled success in his field. However, he said, “Facebook is not a company for everyone in the world. The most important thing is to keep your team as small as possible.”

“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.”

In 2014, Zuckerberg went outside his comfort zone and purchased the virtual reality company Oculus for $2 billion. His ambition for the virtual reality company rung clear.

“The strategy for Oculus is to help accelerate their growth. They’ve got two products… Rift on PC, and they’re supporting Gear VR and the Samsung team on building the mobile version. I’m really excited about both of them.”

His venture into virtual reality proves his self-belief and drive to succeed despite accomplishing so much at a young age. At the Mobile World Congress, Mark Zuckerberg imparted one final word of wisdom during the question and answer session.

Zuckerberg said, “Everyone has a unique perspective that they can bring to the world.”

Mark Zuckerberg may well be the living embodiment of that quote.

[Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images]