> 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.

I worked for a unit at University of Delaware (20 years ago) in a unit
called OCBI (later OIT) and I was perhaps the first male programmer
non-musician hired.

Less than a year after I left a new president killed the unit.

> 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?"

I've had this opportunity twice and I've been happy both times. I've
recommended three people and it worked out all three times (I eventually
married one of them).
-- 
D. Jay Newman           ! Polititions and civilations come and
jay@sprucegrove.com     ! go but the engineers and machinists 
http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! make progress
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