How to (hire the best || never get laid off)

Employee/Employer relationships are the topics that come up with enough regularity across hackernews, reddit and other articles, but other than a couple of random nuggets of wisdom here and there, I never quite came across the fundamental rule to drive them all until today.

Most everyone focuses on the various strategies for weeding out people or specifics for getting noticed. Firm handshakes, interviews beginning with the receptionist, interviews being replaced with mini-projects, whiteboard coding, judging on appearance, punctuality etc etc etc. It's basically a big set of articles with various advice on how to tune the bayesian employee filter or get through them.

While useful, I think we haven't given enough attention to the real rule that underlies everything else.

Obviously, "best" for everyone is quite different, however I'd be willing to bet that there's one golden quality that consistently underlies those that most of us consider "awesome" co-workers or employees.

In the short essay, "A Message to Garcia," it underlines the qualities of the man that is so valuable that no employer can let them go. Ultimately, it's embodied in the man who can carry the message to Garcia.

http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/199th/ocs/content/pdf/Message%20to%20Garcia.pdf

It's a quick 5-10 minute read, but the story distills itself into being the person we describe as the "gets-shit-done-guy-without-complaining."