Too often, candidates walk into an interview believing that the deciding factor for whether or
not they get the job is the interview itself.  Albeit that may be true in some cases, at DataDyne we believe finding the right candidate is like finding the recipe for and making an old fashion chocolate chip cookie:  the ingredients, the making and leaving of the dough, and the baking must all come together. 

We've received about a hundred qualified job applications for 4 openings on our dev team.  The process has been a great learning experience for Datadyne.  We have learned that our unconventional hiring strategy has consistently selected the best candidates for the dev positions.  In our hiring strategy, the following factors matters most: previous work experience, letters of references, and hands-on interview.  The process is much like baking a chocolate chip cookie!

The ingredients:  Much like how basketball players are picked based upon their past shooting statistics, we do the same thing, by starting with an assessment of the candidate's portfolio.    

The leavening process: We take previous work experience very seriously - and all candidates we've hired had impressed us by sending their portfolio of past projects.  If we like what we see in the candidate's track record, we ask for letters of references.

Fellow baker recommendations:  We believe that to form an accurate impression of the candidates' abilities, we must by both interviews them and hearing the cumulative evaluations of their previous managers.

Cookie tasting: Finally, the hands-on interview is our alternative to the traditional hour-long
interview. Our hands-on interview last a full work day. Rather than hiring a person who interviews well and can answer perfunctory questions such as "what is your biggest weakness," we invite them to join our team and work for a day, and we become the first-hand witnesses to their weaknesses and strengths.  Our hires have all aced their hands-on interview, and unsurprisingly, when they came onboard, they ace their actual assignments too.