Hiring the open source way

In a business utopia, every employer would be able to hand-raise employees, selecting those who showed early potential and molding them to excel in a chosen skill set. HR departments would become happy havens of retention and corporate trainers would become den mothers fostering natural selection.

Alas, we do not live in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Employees are not decanted with a programmed set of skills, and children are not conditioned to prefer one type of work over another. In this society, an individual chooses a professional track. Sometimes, both the employer and the employee achieve success, and other times, the two sides collide then go their separate ways.

Imagine how both sides would benefit if employers had an established set of potential hires who had already proven their worth, and if employees had an opportunity to experience the company culture before committing to it. This is where businesses associated with open source software projects hold a distinct hiring advantage: a skilled pool of IT professionals who are already demonstrating their worth through volunteering and contributing to a project.

Consider this: a newcomer becomes active in an open source project. This person starts by contributing some bug fixes and maybe some documentation. Over time, this new contributor becomes more invested in the project, writing tests, plug-ins and core feature enhancements. In the meantime, an open source business that uses the project's code gets to review that contributor's work and gain a feel for his skill level. The contributor is also becoming an active participant in the community by participating in forums, IRC channels and mailing lists, offering the employer additional insight into this person's personality and how he might fit into an organization.

Along the way, the employer needs help with a professional project. Having seen the contributor's work, the employer offers a project contract, further allowing both sides to demonstrate and evaluate their abilities. Eventually, a staff position opens up in the business. The employer could go through the traditional hiring process, but why? Having already become familiar with the project, demonstrated skill and ability, and proven a good work ethic, the contributor from the open source community is a natural fit for the position.

This seems to be a win-win situation for all involved. The employer is able to feel at ease with the hire, already knowing the person's personality traits, skill level, work quality and work ethic. Each side enters the situation already having communicated and worked with the other, easing the transition. The new hire is obviously interested in the field, or that person wouldn't have been volunteering so much time to the project. This also brings the advantage of reduced formal training because this person has already been working and contributing for some time. The new hire can come on board and immediately be productive. From the employer's perspective, the hiring process is as painless as can be: no wasted time spent reviewing unqualified applicants' resumes or conducting hours of interviews.