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You're sitting in a conference room, waiting for a much-anticipated job interview at an Internet startup, when a hiring manager walks in, dumps a box of Legos on the table, and says that you have five minutes to "build something." Wait a second, you think to yourself. I'm looking to become the head of marketing at this company, not land a guest spot on Sesame Street.

Welcome to the ever-changing dotcom talent game. "Internet companies no longer have time for hours-long, let's-get-to-know-you interviews," declares Colleen Aylward, who plays the new game better than almost anyone else. "They certainly don't have the luxury of hiring the 'nicest' people with the toothiest smiles, and then training them. Companies -- especially startups -- need people who are creative, who can turn on a dime, and who can use their street smarts to solve real-world problems."

That's a good description of Aylward herself. Aylward, 46, is the founder of Devon James Associates Inc., a fast-growing recruiting firm based in Seattle. She's played the talent game for some of the best-known Internet companies in the Pacific Northwest, including Amazon.com, Avenue A Inc., eCharge Corp., employeesavings.com Inc., mylackey.com, and Visio Corp. In a game where the rules keep changing, she says, victory goes to companies with the most commitment and the most clever tactics.

In August 1999, for example, Mike Leo, cofounder and vice president of strategic development at Avenue A, an Internet-marketing company, told Aylward that he needed new employees at positions across the board -- engineers, marketers, sales-people, advertising specialists -- and that he needed them immediately. So she organized a pub crawl for potential recruits. Aylward, who is pencil-thin, with a head of red hair to match her fiery personality, ushered a posse of 100 Avenue A employees, dressed in matching T-shirts, through a collection of Seattle bars and nightspots. The idea behind the crawl? To use this attractive group of highly motivated employees to spread the word about the company and to convince other people to join. In the days following the pub crawl, hundreds of resumes flooded Aylward's recruiting war room -- and resulted in about 35 hires.

Aylward recently let Fast Company tag along as she raced through Seattle's streets in her red Alfa Romeo (which doubles as her office), stopping only to coach companies and job candidates on how to play the new talent game. Here are her rules for success.

How do you help startups wage the battle to find talent?

What talent shortage? I'm deluged with resumes. There are plenty of talented workers out there. It's just that great people already have great jobs. The burden is on companies -- both startups and established organizations -- to become more rigorous and more creative about finding the talented people that they need, and convincing those people to join, even if they've never thought about leaving their company.

Everyone has a price. I can pull just about anybody from one company and put them into another. You simply have to understand how the environment has changed.

What's changed?