Looking at online presences is an increasingly common way to find solid developers. 37signals wrote about how they only hire people based on their open source contributions in Getting Real: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php

It's far from a universal technique, but you can tell a lot about someone's sincerity and true skill level by seeing books or blog posts they've written, their open source contribution and projects, their Twitter account, screencasts they've made, citations to talks they've given, and what not.

Geeks cut from all cloths who want more doors to open in future need to keep their digital "footprint" in mind and strive to maintain and build a good image and do great public work.

The principal of a research lab I used to work at had 80%-solutions to common management problems, which he stuck with and which seem to have paid off remarkably well on average, at least at the scale of that lab.

His technique for hiring programmers: (unpaid) probation for 30 days, no exceptions. He almost always confirms sooner than that, but 30 days is the limit for someone who isn't working out.

edit: to stress: I AM NOT recommending this as general business practice.

That guarantees you find people who are desperate. Personally, I would walk out. A month of my time is very valuable, and I am not keen on giving it away. Especially when the risk is subjective and not necessarily under my control.

How was that research lab organized? Organizations that aren't bona-fide nonprofit charities trying to hire volunteers get themselves into really bad legal exposure under Fair Labor Standards Acts and other regulations. Maybe the desperate workers have never called him on that, but an unpaid month of work from every worker the lab hires adds up to a lot of legal liability, unless there is some specific exemption here you haven't told us about.

You're assuming it's in the US, it isn't.

Out of curiosity, then, where was it?

In India. This was an academic research lab in a bona fide university, and I believe the same standards apply all over the world in academia.

I would check that last statement before counting on it.

You mean he honestly recruited only programmers who were willing to work for 30 days without pay? Sorry, but I'm a human being with bills to pay. I don't offer a "try before you buy" period.

Whoops, I should have stayed around to field replies.

I should have mentioned that most programmers who look to join are grad student aspirants who want to enter the institute's prestigious PhD program via that route. The alternative to that is the mainstream route which has an entrance exam and a huge amount of competition.

The other thing is that this is a world-class research lab in an area attractive enough to hacker-types that the young people who apply are not too worried about the money. These are of course young folks with no dependents. You get free or cheap housing and food, and access to a wonderful library, etc.

It's about as exploitative as grad school, let's just say. This of course voids any suggestion you might think I made to adopt this as a general business practice.

The only advantage I can see to having the probation period unpaid is that the principal can now "try" more applicants at no cost, before settling down on one. Are you aware of other advantages?

This puts a serious constraint on the jobs an applicant can try at - even if one is OK with trying out for a job for 30 days without pay, far fewer people can afford to do a few of these in a row and choose the right job for themselves.

IMHO, it is perfectly reasonable to insist that one gets a "try-before-buy" option. Tacking on the "unpaid" factor, sounds like a "While we are at, let us screw them over too" afterthought.

Please see my replies in sister threads. This was in academia, not business.

Personally I think most arrangements in academia/higher education are indeed exploitative.

I think that the probation idea is useful as a hiring strategy in a business scenario.

Well... some free advice.

If you try it with people, make certain the employees understand the background, otherwise they might be out the door later -- and you'll have to eat the cost of hiring again.

This might work on me even if I wasn't desperate -- and you e.g. showed me the books:

"This is a startup, we are optimizing for runway right now. If we like you, we will pay you and give you options -- but we must be thrifty for X months."

That is, however, precisely what they did during the .com boom.