Mahalo: We Only Hire “The Best”

In case you are seeking employment in the product management field, q&a service Mahalo is hiring. Check out the full job description on Craigslist. It’s important to know that you must be "THE BEST" to apply for this position. Some other important notes from the posting:

• you will work hard
• it’s "life-changing"
• it’s an "incredible" opportunity
• you must be ready everyday to "kill it" – yes, based on twitter messages, it does mean everyday
• you will work hard

It’s got to be tough around Mahalo these days… what’s happened lately you ask?

• they shut down their greenhouse
• in the new upcoming greenhouse, many of the tasks will be moved to Manila  or to the buck-a-post answers system
• Andy Beal claimed that Mahalo is involved in a "pagerank funneling link scheme"
• Leah D’Emilio – host of the very popular Mahalo Daily video show quit this week – the show will move to a weekly format to become profitable
• Apparently while they only want "the best" – they did hire a felon. Apparently Jason’s HR department forgot to do a quick Google check on their employee.

My questions about the felonious hire are…

• Once the Mahalo executives found out about this situation, did they share the news with the rest of the employees?
• What about the Mahalo team in Manila – have they been checked?
• I think there’s a difference between giving a person a second chance after they have served their time and keeping a person who has yet to be sentenced on the payroll
• While Jason plays down the security fears some of Mahalo’s users might have, they are now accepting money from users on Answers. While I am guessing the number of people who have deposited their own money is less than 10, I think those people are due some answers.
• Rafe at CNET asks similar questions about trust with regards to Mahalo going forward and Rafe also wonders if we should trust any Web service that has a convicted hacker on the payroll

Let’s hope next week is a better one for Mahalo!