We know that when you mention stalking up their "barbaric rituals" you don't mean that you want this sort of employee because of the way you have phrased "barbaric rituals". You want to eliminate them from consideration. What are barbaric rituals? It is a well known phrase used to describe religious practices one doesn't like. So we are left to guess which ones you might mean. Possibly it could be photos of the Day of Ashua, the Shia islam festival where they cut their children's heads with swords. This seems a long shot though since most developers don't post this sort of thing to their Facebook page. I also don't see photos of the Bulgarian dog spinning ritual on pages, which is the #3 google hit for "barbaric ritual". I do though see the occasional photo of brit ceremonies (jewish circumcision) on people's facebook accounts, and it's also the #1 google hit for "barbaric ritual" because this phrase is very often used to describe it on various web forums by anti-circumcision advocates, nearly all of whom for which their anti-circumcision stance is just a veiled attempt to justify their deep seated hatred of muslims and jews.

Reading what you wrote, it in essence says "Jews and Muslims need not apply". You'll of course insist that is not the case since that would look bad, but that is why you wrote "barbaric rituals" rather than specify what you were really getting at explicitly.

On to Facebook stalking in general. As far as candidate's Facebook pages where they communicate private things with friends and families, you as employer are neither friend nor family, and their Facebook account is none of your damn business. That you think it is your business shows that you are a control freak who can't mind his own business, and that your company is a hellhole to work at.

I am speaking here as someone with hiring authority who has hired hundreds of very talented people. I do not need to know their religion, their barbaric practices, their baby photos, their friends list, or their poetry in order to evaluate their technical ability. And you know what? I have no problems recruiting the best, and I don't use recruiters.

Companies that have problems finding talent always have attitude problems and deep systematic problems within their firms.

How to find talent? It's easy. Here are some tips I have used, which are not comprehensive, they are just a starting point for how to wise up to the right attitude.

* Make sure one's firm is not a lousy place to work. If you are not sure, it is probably a lousy place. If you ever say "why do I work with idiots" then it definitely is.

* Make sure one's firm pays at least at the 75th percentile and above for one's area for talent because the fact is that the average talent is quite poor.

* Be upfront about compensation. If there is a job ad somewhere, state clearly the salary range and benefits including if full relocation is paid.

* Pay full relocation after a hire and interview expenses before a hire, that is just common sense. If the employee would have to sell his house at a loss in a down market to move because the market is underwater, the company buys the house from the employee to cover the difference so he doesn't lose money selling, which can make it impossible to move. When the employee is moving from a cheap housing area to an expensive one, signing bonuses can be used to cover the difference in housing prices between the two areas so the employee can move into a house comparable to the one he left.

Lousy places to work will go haywire when reading these sorts of tips and start making excuses about why some or all of the above are impossible policies.