You could hire through open source like GitHub (“we hire ‘The Girl or Guy Who Wrote X,’ where X is an awe­some project we all use or admire”) or use a check-list to recog­nise com­pe­tency (pas­sion, self-teaching, a love of learn­ing, intel­li­gence, hid­den expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of a vari­ety of tech­nolo­gies) and no doubt find some fine programmers.

You could also take a sim­i­lar approach to hir­ing mar­keters, writ­ers, design­ers and those in many other indus­tries, too. While this may guar­an­tee com­pe­tence, it does not guar­an­tee suc­cess (busi­ness and/or interpersonal).

Com­bine the above with the approach Steve Jobs takes to inter­view­ing (via Ben Cas­nocha) and you may be on to some­thing (empha­sis mine):

When I hire some­body really senior, com­pe­tence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, every­thing else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or any­body else. […]

How do I feel about this per­son? What are they like when they’re chal­lenged? Why are they here? I ask every­body that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers them­selves are not what you’re look­ing for. It’s the meta-data.

Take heed of how Aaron Swartz hires pro­gram­mers using three ques­tions (via kot­tke) and you’re likely to end up with the best can­di­date. Those three questions:

  • Can they get stuff done?
  • Are they smart?
  • Can you work with them?

And to answer those questions:

  • To find out if they can get stuff done, I just ask what they’ve done. If some­one can actu­ally get stuff done they should have done so by now.
  • To find out whether someone’s smart, I just have a casual con­ver­sa­tion with them. […] Under no cir­cum­stances do I ask them any stan­dard “inter­view questions”.
    • First, do they know stuff? Ask them what they’ve been think­ing about and probe them about it. Do they seem to under­stand it in detail? Can they explain it clearly? […] Do they know stuff about the sub­ject that you don’t?
    • Sec­ond, are they curi­ous? Do they rec­i­p­ro­cate by ask­ing ques­tions about you? Are they gen­uinely inter­ested or just being polite? Do they ask follow-up ques­tions about what you’re say­ing? Do their ques­tions make you think?
    • Third, do they learn? At some point in the con­ver­sa­tion, you’ll prob­a­bly be explain­ing some­thing to them. Do they actu­ally under­stand it or do they just nod and smile?
  • I fig­ure out whether I can work with some­one just by hang­ing out with them for a bit. […] The point is just to see whether they get on your nerves.