MrBeast 'vibe checks' new hires because working for the YouTuber isn't for everyone

Relocating someone for a job can be risky for both a new hire and their employer. YouTuber MrBeast has an answer: the 90-day “vibe check.”

Before committing to working at his Greenville, North Carolina production studioMrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, starts some workers on roughly three-month contracts. During that trial period, internally called a vibe check, the company gives staffers an apartment and a rental car so they can focus on work without worrying about relocation.

The objective is to “ensure you don’t uproot your entire life and move to Greenville, North Carolina, and not work out,” a former MrBeast staffer said.

Vibe checks are designed to assess culture fit, as well as test if new hires are ready to be coached on the creator’s content style. MrBeast built the most popular YouTube channel in the world, with over 400 million subscribers, by doing things his own way and eschewing some traditional media practices.

“This is not Hollywood and I do not want to be Hollywood,” the creator previously wrote in a production guide for his team. “If that sentence is a turn off to you then you’re probably at the wrong job.”

MrBeast’s media business pulled in about $224 million in 2024, according to a leaked investor deck from early 2025 viewed by Business Insider. With around 300 staffers in Greenville, the creator now recruits media talent who may be more accustomed to working in Hollywood than YouTube. The vibe check helps the MrBeast team see if those hires are ready to make the jump.

“People who come from filming videos for news, editorial, or even film, they think, ‘I can do that, so I can work here,'” a second ex-MrBeast staffer said. “The problem is it’s so vastly different. You’re doing shorter content, you’re not trying to film a movie.”

Other companies have experimented with trial periods as a way to weed out new hires that may not fit with company culture. Zappos previously offered new workers a $2,000 bonus to leave after four weeks if they weren’t fully committed to working for the shoe retailer, for example.

While probationary periods give workers and their employers a chance to assess fit, they also present some risks to workers, said Emilio J. Castilla, a professor of work and organization studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management. If an employer uses the trial period as a tool to maintain a temporary workforce, for example, rather than hire for the long term, that would be an “unintended consequence of a practice that initially was meant to reduce risks for both the employer and the employee,” Castilla said.

For MrBeast hires who are transitioning from traditional productions to YouTube and getting accustomed to living in Greenville, the trial period can be beneficial, two ex-MrBeast staffers said. It gives them a chance to prove their value.

“The fact that the employer’s putting a lot of resources into this period of time where the candidates can really step up, know they’re under scrutiny, and get to show what they can deliver in a three month period, gives them a chance to show them that they do have what it takes,” said Brittany M. Bond, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University’s ILR School.

Ultimately, Donaldson is looking for “A-Players” who are open to change and ready to put in the hours.

“A-Players are obsessive, learn from mistakes, coachable, intelligent, don’t make excuses, believe in YouTube, see the value of this company, and are the best in the goddamn world at their job,” he wrote in his production guide.

As one of the ex-MrBeast employees put it: The company is “looking for you to buy in and work hard. Even if you don’t know something, are you going to hit the ground running and learn?”

Read more about what it’s like for media workers to work at MrBeast’s Greenville headquarters in our full deep dive.