I'd think a good way to hire great developers is to hire and fire quickly. I see this mentioned time and again, yet very few people actually live by it. The process would then turn into a trial period beyond which you are good to go. If you want to have a group of good developers, just operate along the lines of "I give myself X months to notice that this new hire is bad." If you want a group of great developers, switch your mode of operation to "I give this new hire X months to impress his/her peers."
The people who can make the judgement call are usually the hire's peers based on their daily interactions, so how would management be able to get its hands on this knowledge without turning the company culture into a disaster where people always feel like they are being continuously judged by their peers and have to watch their backs?
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I'd think a good way to hire great developers is to hire and fire quickly. I see this mentioned time and again, yet very few people actually live by it. The process would then turn into a trial period beyond which you are good to go. If you want to have a group of good developers, just operate along the lines of "I give myself X months to notice that this new hire is bad." If you want a group of great developers, switch your mode of operation to "I give this new hire X months to impress his/her peers."
The people who can make the judgement call are usually the hire's peers based on their daily interactions, so how would management be able to get its hands on this knowledge without turning the company culture into a disaster where people always feel like they are being continuously judged by their peers and have to watch their backs?