> If you're going through the front door, you've already lost.

I've heard that advice in various forms but I must say (anecdote incoming) - in my own 30 year career, the best jobs I've ever had were the random ones that I just applied for and the worst ones were the ones that somebody I knew from before recruited me in from outside.

How many jobs have you had? You talked about the best and the worst. Can you comment on the relationship between (y-axis) quality of job and (x-axis) strength of personal connection before you joined. If you plotted a scatterplot, what relationship would you find?

I've changed jobs ten times since 1992. As it works out, exactly half of them I was recruited into by an internal reference and the other half I found on a job board like Monster or LinkedIn. By far, the two best were relatively large organizations that I applied to cold, and the two absolute worst were actually the ones I was most actively recruited into by former co-workers. I suspect that the problem in both of the latter cases was that they worked so hard to bring me in that they ended up overselling me - I'm good, but I'm also a human who has two kids to look after. On the other hand, if I'm "just" the best candidate from the pile of resumes, expectations seem to be reasonable.

hmm, I guess I can say a reasonably good one and the worst one ever that almost made me quit programming came about this way. The same guy recruited me in both places.

This is fairly true. The easiest side-door if anyone is wondering is a recruiting firm. At least with those there is already a somewhat simple contract in place that helps get rid of poor people.

I am wondering if the entire interview process should just be pay them for 2 weeks and see if they stick.