In How Google Works, co-authors Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg with Alan Eagle devote an entire chapter to hiring: “Talent — Hiring Is the Most Important Thing You Do” (Pages 95-141). They believe that hiring is the most important area of what Google does and explain how and why. Of special interest to them are people they characterize as “creative smarts,” those who are a “firehose” of new ideas that are genuinely new. “She is always questioning, never satisfied with the status quo, seeing problems to solve everywhere and thinking that she is just the right person to solve them. She can be overbearing.”

Schmidt and Rosenberg with Eagle wrote this book to help other companies to become “a self-perpetuating virtuous cycle, sort of like a snowball rolling down the hill, getting bigger as it picks up momentum. We prescribe a series of steps businesses can follow to attract and motivate smart creatives, each of which propels the business to the next step.”

Here are Google’s hiring dos and don’ts:

Hire people who are smarter and more knowledgeable than you are.
Don’t hire people you can learn from and be challenged by.

Hire people who will add value to the product and our culture.
Don’t hire people who won’t contribute well to both

Hire people who will get things done.
Don’t hire people who just think about problems.

Hire people who are enthusiastic, self-motivated, and passionate.
Don’t hire people who just want a job.

Hire people who inspire and work well with others.
Don’t hire people with narrow skills sets or interests.

Hire people who are well rounded, with unique interests and talents.
Don’t hire people who only live to work.

Hire people who are ethical and who communicate openly.
Don’t hire people who are political or manipulative.

Hire only when you have found a great candidate.
Don’t settle for anything less.

I highly recommend How Google Works. Also two other sources:

Steven Levy’s In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

Richard Brandt’s The Google Guys: Inside the Brilliant Minds of Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin