Apart from being a image disaster, I don't think that would actually work. A hiring strategy for Google (and one I believe they're following, judging by the ca

Apart from being a image disaster, I don't think that would actually work. A hiring strategy for Google (and one I believe they're following, judging by the calls my friends are getting) is combing places like development mailing lists or open source projects contributors and proposing these people jobs. I'd say that's how they get their rock stars. And for people that are not destined to lead teams or research groups, they're simply doing what any large company does: have a HR department and hire folks that pass the filters, then evaluate them while they're there.