Programmers are a different breed from your normal worker - they have their own quirks and habits that lots of others don't. So, it should make sense that interviewing them for a job should be a little bit different sort of process than other candidates. Nick Halstead knows this and has written up the first part of a series on methods to interview that programmer you have your eye on.

I thought I would write up my thoughts on recruitment, and specifically recruitment of programmers. The reason for this is that I am going through a recruitment cycle at the moment. My new company is a startup and it has made me re-evaluate how I recruit.

Part one talks mostly about the interview, dividing it up into five stages to work through and help make for a good, enlightening interview process. Theses points assume you're starting from the ground up, so if you've had a bit of experience with interviewing, you can probably skip the first two or three steps.