> One of my rules of thumb was that anybody who was willing to stand > behind his name thought his name was worth something. > Remember, most of my hires were either students, grad students, or entry > level programmers. Have you tried salting the interview room with puzzles? Step out for a minute and hire the one with a background in music who picked up a puzzle. It seems like an odd way to go about things, but for entry tech jobs I've noticed a performance correlation from among a population of close to 45 hires. There's no "silver bullet" here. Hiring is just plain hard work and talking to as many references as you can. Heaven is when a respected collegue wanders in and says "I'm impressed with this lad/gal, do we have a slot?" Aza D. Oberman -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist