> I love the idea of a paid working trial of some length
How long of a trial are you thinking of? If it's a significant amount of time, I think this could be hard to do from the perspective of the candidate.
If I'm currently employed, there's probably no way I'm going to quit my job for a month-long paid trial period somewhere else. If it didn't work out, I'd find myself without a job and would be forced to take a hopefully short sabbatical for more interviews (and this wouldn't be possible at all for people who haven't saved up enough money to do so). It just seems too risky.
If it were longer, say six months, I might consider it, but I'd expect a decision to be made well before the end of the sixth month--that way if you didn't want to hire me full-time I'd have time to talk to other companies before losing my income. Even with this concession, I'd have to want to work for your company an abnormal amount to do this, though.
Perhaps a happy medium is a take-home project taking one or two weeks of part-time work, paid for at market wage.
I've seen six months work - that's time enough to ramp up somewhat and deliver. In that regard, it's plenty of time to assess the traits that we're looking for in strong developers.
That is the usual practice in countries like France, where new hires are on a trial basis for a period of one to six months (all other things being equal, the trial period only means that both the employee and the employer may terminate the contract at the end of the period with minimal administrative fuss).
Do you get back to them with the decision well before the end of the period, though, or do you just leave them without an income at the end of it if you decide you don't want to hire them?
How long of a trial are you thinking of? If it's a significant amount of time, I think this could be hard to do from the perspective of the candidate.
If I'm currently employed, there's probably no way I'm going to quit my job for a month-long paid trial period somewhere else. If it didn't work out, I'd find myself without a job and would be forced to take a hopefully short sabbatical for more interviews (and this wouldn't be possible at all for people who haven't saved up enough money to do so). It just seems too risky.
If it were longer, say six months, I might consider it, but I'd expect a decision to be made well before the end of the sixth month--that way if you didn't want to hire me full-time I'd have time to talk to other companies before losing my income. Even with this concession, I'd have to want to work for your company an abnormal amount to do this, though.
Perhaps a happy medium is a take-home project taking one or two weeks of part-time work, paid for at market wage.