I run a mentoring organisation which I started because of my interest in teaching. I used to help the graduates find jobs that they liked. After a couple of yea

I run a mentoring organisation which I started because of my interest in teaching. I used to help the graduates find jobs that they liked. After a couple of years, I started a small services company of my own and started to hire mostly out of my own student pool. I'm very happy with the decision. I develop rapport with the students (and later employees). A 4 month training program, while beneficial for the students, works as an extended interview for me. I get to teach them skills which I think are relevant and fix what I think are cracks in their learning. All in all, at the end, I get employees who have skills that I want and with whom I share a rapport. The approach has scalability problems since I'm just one person but I see no reason why companies shouldn't formalise something like this and hone good talent rather than fish in the labour pool for it.