#1. Yep, great negative filter. And if I was looking for a job, I would be happy to do this. #2. Hard. Very good programmers will often be very busy and never

#1. Yep, great negative filter. And if I was looking for a job, I would be happy to do this. #2. Hard. Very good programmers will often be very busy and never get a chance to open source any of their work. I have so many open source things I'd like to work on, but I am full time employed and when I am done with work I go running, reading books, eating out, anything other than sitting in front of a computer. And I think I'm a better programmer for it. This is why I find claims that this proves "passion" about programming very dubious. Now I do happen to have a source forge profile, from an old job that paid me to work on an open source but not free product. It was a critical piece of infrastructure and my job was to do some very tricky things to it. Every time I've given people a link to my profile and my patches or commit history on that project, they realize they in no way shape or form have the time or energy to grok this huge, old and complex C++ code base, to be able to evaluate my changes to it. Oops! I end up giving them trivial python scripts I've written in an afternoon. Also, a twitter account is definite positive? Really? #3. Yes! As a candidate ask lots of questions and carefully listen to the answers. It's not just you who is auditioning for them! #4. Who doesn't do this? #5. Oh boy. If that only worked. I've worked often with contractors who have been very impressive. We almost often make then a great offer to join our team as full time employees. They always easily decline with a smile. Because they are happy being hired guns, and don't want to go back to being employees. Now suppose a candidate is willing and able to do this, but what happens when some other company makes them a great offer which doesn't require a week long contracting gig first? I've been given great offers hours after walking out of the first in-person interview. Unless I am passionately, madly in love with the idea of working for your company, I will not bother. I would bother if I had no other offers, but are you hiring the best then? And what if the candidate is looking to switch jobs, but professional ethics prevent him from slacking at this current time intensive job? Would they do your contracting thing? What if they don't, but they are in fact far and away the best developer? I've been in that exact siltation, I've taken vacation days to do in-person interviews. But I would not take a week long contracting job just to get to the face to face interview. #6. Unless sales is part of the job I wouldn't want "pitching". Personal chemistry with the team you'd be joining is important, but pitching does not have to be part of that evaluation.