How do engineers decide which jobs to take in Silicon Valley? It's a complex algorithm involving money, friends, hype, and free food. Nowhere in the equation: slick videos. That's why Facebook's recruiting is failing.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had planned to have 1,000 employees by last December. A tipster at the company told us that despite pleas from executives as the economy melted down, Zuckerberg kept hiring — and the only reason he missed his headcount goal was that potential hires were balking at coming on board.

Now Facebook has posted a recruiting video touting the amazing number of photos being uploaded to the site (some 40 billion images in total). It's a slick, PR-friendly video. "What engineeer wouldn't want to work here?" gushes Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer.


Anyone smart enough to draw Facebook's interest, actually. Engineers of that caliber are perfectly capable of doing the math themselves on Facebook's storage requirements withou a video to help them along. If Facebook has to go to such efforts to make itself look cool, then it isn't by definition. No wonder Facebook employees are bitching about the company in internal surveys while Twitter poaches its top prospects.