> But if you can work with someone before you hire them full-time, you'll greatly increase your hit rate. Sure but you also filter out a ton of good candidates

> But if you can work with someone before you hire them full-time, you'll greatly increase your hit rate. Sure but you also filter out a ton of good candidates. I can't do my full time job plus family life stuff and work for someone else on a side project. And I'm not going to resign from a job for a "maybe" contract to hire type position. So it's just a non-starter. And most other programmers I've talked to are the same. It's different for younger people who don't have families but that's exactly my point. You filter out whole demographics with the contract to hire style.