How to Hire—and Get Hired—in a Recession

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It's great that someone wants to work hard, but do they have direct experience closing a client? Do they have direct experience leading the building of an actual product that makes it to market and is embraced by customers?

Here are some very basic questions I like to ask folks in an interview. (Have I interviewed you? How was it for you?):

1. Who are the top three clients you've worked for? (This could be internal or external.)

2. What problem did you solve for these three clients?

3. How long did you work for these clients?

4. Can I have the names of these clients as references?

5. What was the best product/service you ever created/sold and why?

6. What was the most disappointing product/service you ever created/sold and why? What did you take away from that?

If folks can't answer these types of questions quickly and sharply, it might mean they had one of those "soft jobs" where they didn't have to produce a product that absolutely delighted customers. Every position serves a customer in some way: The mailroom guy serves the people getting the mail, the IT person serves the people who bring her frozen laptops, and the CEO has to deal with a range of "customers" in the form of investors, partners, employees, and board members.

This is a long and obvious way of saying that you need folks who can get stuff done.

If you're one of the 17 folks who made it to the bottom, I'm wondering the following:

1. What's your best technique for getting hired?

2. What are your favorite interview questions for figuring out if you're hiring a winner or a clock puncher?

3. What's going on in your backyard? What are you seeing in terms of hiring and laying people off? Who's getting let go and who's getting hired?

Note: Three ways to answer these questions:

1. You can jason@calacanis.com

2. You can answer this question over at Mahalo Answers in an open fashion by following this URL: http://digg.com/u17Rc (You can log into Mahalo Answers with your Facebook ID, so it's super easy. Yes, this is a backhanded way to get you to try my product. Hey, I'm a hustler, baby! Hate the game, not the player!)

3. You can post a comment in the discussion section below.

Jason Calacanis is founder and chief executive of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine. The founder and former editor of Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, he posts regularly on his personal blog. You can sign up for his newsletter here.