Except telecommuting someone you don't know is a HUGE risk. Hiring is an expensive, activity that doesn't reward taking risks.

We have one telecommute worker and he is about 60% as effective as he was onsite. That's somebody we had onsite for six months before he started telecommute. YMMV, but that's why companies don't like telecommuting.

It isn't that we have our heads in our asses, we just know it is a poor substitute for having you onsite and we avoid it if we can.