[bad_user]

No, that's not similar. There's a huge difference there ...

Good consultants / freelancers have higher hourly rates than normal employees, to cover their expenses and the periods of inactivity. Plus really good ones are much more expensive simply because they can deliver value that can't be delivered by average employees, so they are expensive because there's demand for their skill-set.

Your solution for example would not get me hired by you. Because I hate probation periods. Because getting hired for only X weeks is a risk for me that has to be worth it. So either you're a really sexy company for which I'm dying to work for, or you must pay me enough for those 3 weeks to be worth it.

And furthermore, the relationship between a consultant hired for a limited amount of time and an employee on probation is very different, going beyond just price. A good consultant gets hired based on (initial) trust in that consultant's skill-set, wheres a probation period signals exactly the opposite.

[raving-richard]

Of course, for that initial period, paying extra would be the way to go. The difference between what I suggest, and an ordinary probation period is thus: with an ordinary probation period, still only one person is hired, but not only do the others not get paid, the one person is still not guaranteed a job at the end of the process. My way's more upfront.