That's a good point, and one I didn't think about. Cooking is, on the whole, a much more unstable industry in terms of work experience and generally the kinds o

That's a good point, and one I didn't think about. Cooking is, on the whole, a much more unstable industry in terms of work experience and generally the kinds of restaurants that even do a stage are the kinds it's even worth taking the risk on even if you are employed. One possible solution might be to make it a remote contract. "Work on this bug/commit/sample project at your leisure, commit by no later X date". Then moonlighting applicants or even just people who don't want to risk being off the search during the trial period can still participate on the same playing field, though they would potentially still be disadvantaged compared to unemployed applicants. I don't think though that a little bias there is entirely a bad idea personally, though you could possibly argue the merits either way.