Yeah, I think data is the goldmine. If you know what questions to ask to quickly estimate someones ability to be successful in school/workplace you can just do shotgun approach hiring. As one of the largest software companies in the world that is a savvy move, although for some reason I can't quite figure out it does feel somewhat sleazy.

When I worked for Sybase there was following brain drain pipeline from India office:

* Hire a bunch of people.

* Move brightest and hardest working to U.S. on H1B.

* Use that PR to hire a bunch more people in India.