More power to you and your kind! I have been trying this model in India, along with a few of my friends/peers - to hire for junior/intermediate roles and found

More power to you and your kind! I have been trying this model in India, along with a few of my friends/peers - to hire for junior/intermediate roles and found a great deal of success. Experience and capability, in a way could be seen as having parts - [ ~30-40% {generic tech, domain, soft-skills}, ~70-60%{contextual knowledge and experience on the product/stack/domain} ] The former comes from past work experience; the latter part - which is more crucial to achieve successful outcomes from intended role, is gained only on the job. And thus IMO internship/apprenticeship model works really well.