[retreatguru]

I really like this approach and I reading about it here makes me inspired to try it on our next hire. We do pair programming, so it would work well for us.

What I've been doing which is similar is hiring the dev on contract for a short term to see if it works out. But I think this approach is much more efficient. Do you get and check references?

[passiveincomelg]

I suggested a try-before-you-buy contract to a few companies that I applied with and none of them were interested. Maybe it is because the company is afraid of the contractor saying "What is the upside for me to join you as an employee? Just extend my contract if you want to keep me around." :-P

[jacques_chester]

So far as I'm aware, we don't go into references. If not, I don't know whether it's because we don't like to or don't have the bandwidth available.