It was suggested to me that a question I may wish to pose to references (past employers) of potential new hires is whether or not the reference would hire that person again. The response to such a question has assisted me in determining whether that candidate is someone worth meeting. But what if I wanted to know whether that candidate was not just above average, but rather whether the candidate was a “10x’er” at their previous job. [For reference, Jim Collins defines a 10x’er as someone that possesses fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia – although many in the tech scene seem to prefer the term ‘rock star’]. For the past few months I have tried a number of different approaches in an attempt to sniff out candidates that may be 10x’ers. After some testing, I believe that I have found a line of questioning that seems to work quite well. Simply put, I ask: ”If you were able to hire 10 identical copies (or clones) of this individual, would you jump at that opportunity, or would you be hesitant?”. I don’t think that this is gospel, but it has worked for me and so I thought I’d share it. #Hustle