Elon Musk explains what he looks for when interviewing people for Tesla and SpaceX

When I interview somebody, I really just ask them to tell me the story of their career. What are some of the tougher problems that they dealt with, how they dealt with those, and how they made decisions at key transition points. And usually that's enough for me to get a very good gut feel about someone. And what I'm really looking for is evidence of exceptional ability. Did they face really difficult problems and overcome them? And of course, you want to make sure that if there was some significant accomplishment, were they really responsible, or was somebody else more responsible? Usually the person who's had to struggle with the problem, they really understand it, and they don't forget it was very difficult. So you can ask them very detailed questions about it, and they will know the answer. Whereas the person who was not truly responsible for that accomplishment will not know the details. Which college or which university. There's no need even to have a college degree at all, or even high school. If somebody graduated from a great university, that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things, but it's not necessarily the case. If you look at, say, people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, these guys didn't graduate from college, but if you had a chance to hire them, of course that would be a good idea. So looking just for evidence of exceptional ability, and if there's a track record of exceptional achievement, then it's likely that that will continue into the future.