[freework]

"Best way is personal recommendation."

I somewhat disagree. What I've found is that great programmers are networked up with other great programmers. Crappy programmers are networked up with other crappy developers. If you only ever hire from within your existing employee's network, you'll only ever get more of the same. If you're expanding your team, you are going to want to get people who are better than what you already have.