RECRUITMENT:
An X-Culture Admin must have a very long attention span, be able to figure out things on his/her own, pay attention to detail, and be able to learn.

Accordingly, I used a recruitment ad that was two pages long, same font, no paragraphs. Just looooong text. In that ad, I said openly that
(1) I want to make sure you are reading this long document and if you do, please put “crowdsourcing” in the subject line when you apply. This is how I test your ability to work with long and boring documents.
(2) I listed three questions that will be on the job interview (e.g., I will ask you to show me how VLOOKUP works. I honestly said, I knew normal people don’t know what VLOOKUP is, but advised the job seekers to just google it – lots of short videos that explain what it is and how it works.

About 120 people applied, but only 5 of them put “crowdsourcing” in the subject line. I assume the rest of them did not fully read the ad, and thus would have not been good candidates for the job anyway.

Of the 5 who did put the right word in the subject line and were invited for the job interview, only one was able to answer the three questions I said I would ask.

That one person was Simone.

PERFORMANCE:
Over my decade as a professor, I must have had 20 graduate and undergraduate assistants, plus at least 20 others who did their independent study or honors research project with me.
There was at least several others who were extremely smart and skilled. For example, two were so good with Excel, they taught me things I would have never figured out on my own.

But when it comes to reliability, diligence, attention to detail, and communication skills, Simone is a true rock star.

Over the past three years, he has invested about 3,000 hours in X-Culture – all while maintaining a nearly perfect GPA. Very impressive.

Simone graduates this week with his Bachelor’s in Marketing from the Bryan School of Business and Economics of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

He has decided to continue with his MBA and has been admitted with a full scholarship (stipend and tuition waiver). So the plan is that he’ll stay with us for two more years.

He’ll be hard to replace, but we have enough time to train a new person.