the challenges you describe are, i think, why networking is really the only viable way to find the best talent - self-selection can work in your favor, if you'r

the challenges you describe are, i think, why networking is really the only viable way to find the best talent - self-selection can work in your favor, if you're doing it right. One of the leaders here in the Philadelphia tech community, Kyle Burton, talks about networking on HN here[1] - he is running a Clojure startup and has had little difficulty hiring due to the time he spent cultivating the local community. he hosts his own clojure meetup which it appears he can hire from at will. edit: i just emailed him to belatedly ask permission to quote him, maybe he will chime in here. "I was actively recruited to the team. I personally believe that this was because I made a conscious effort in the fall of 2008 to start being much more active in the community at large. I started doing more visibile things on the internet: a blog, putting up a sandbox on github. I also started speaking at local user groups (god bless them for listening to my first talks and my horrible, horrendous presentation skills). ... "By 'recruited into' I mean that not in the sense that either side used a recruiter. I mean I was approached through my network because of the effort I put into building the netowrk and the effort I put into building a personal brand (as slimy as that sounds, it is working). ... "Actively working at networking has been wonderful. I can't recommend it enough. I was involved in starting a "tech breakfast" meeting that takes place 1x a month. The local groups (esp volunteering to speak), the breakfast sessions, and buying people lunch (an hour of interesting conversation is totally worth the $10, and every time it has come back to me) has gone a long way to building a local network." [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2832571 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2832571