Tjaart van der Walt wrote:
[snip]
> I am currently interviewing applicants for positions in the
> development lab. I won't take anyone who doesn't have a
> passion for electronics to the point of also doing it as a
> hobby.
>
> The worst engineer is the one who studied it because his/her
> advisor/parents said so.

Some time ago I was selecting few people for the dev/lab too, and it was
very interesting, I "planted" several objects into the waiting room.

a) Few PC related magazines,
b) Electronic Buyer's News paper,
c) Two boards with microcontrollers
d) Bare PCB's (no components)
e) Few microcontrollers in a plastic tube
f) Some circuit diagrams
g) Some chips tech data sheet
h) The Local Newspaper
i) Time Magazine
j) Sport Magazine
k) Racing Car's Magazine

When a candidate arrived, he was asked to wait for a whole minute in
that room. The receptionist in the same room had the job to make notes
of all objects the waiting "victim" touch, open, look or read. Of course
the "victim" shouldn't notice it.

I could be wrong, but we hired two guys: The first one found the
"intentional" misplaced crystal connected to port pins instead the
oscillator pins at the Orcad diagram printout, and he *told me that*
during the enterview. The second told me that he found out about the
receptionist writing. In real he played with her, she wrote two pages in
less than a minute... :)  Those were not the only reasons why we hired
them, but coincidentaly it happened.

You can say you are a lucky person when your "paid job" is also your
hobby.