As in working for you for free, and on a WE to boot?
For a student or someone who is unemployed, that might work.
For someone with a job and a family life, I don't think so. Especially if that person can command a $120k+ salary.
We invited people to come up with ways to improve the job market, which is clearly broken. Some chose to do that, while others had their own apps already in mind.
One group made contactr.io, an extension for Google Chrome that shows you the email addresses of the founders of the company website you're visiting.
Another group is working on a project called livelyhood, which will be a sort of LinkedIn 2.0 where candidates can share their work easily.
The participants worked for themselves, helped each other, and walked away with a larger network of people who recognized their qualities.
This weekend was specifically designed for people whose resumes would not automatically "command" a $120K salary. They were the ones languishing in the slush pile.
We held the event on a weekend so that people who already had jobs, albeit jobs they were unhappy with, could join us.
If you like your weekends more than good work, then it definitely would not have been the right fit.
Seriously????
I'm sure the OP means well, and it may have been a success for them, but I don't know anyone in my circle who would participate in something like this, unless they were utterly desperate for a job. I thought there was a serious talent crunch? Who is courting whom?
I wonder what sort of engineers self-select in a process like this?
Unemployed people have lots of time. Understand that and you'll understand why a weekend like this makes sense.
One reason they're unemployed is that they don't know how to demonstrate their value. A lot of engineers are actually poor at communicating, and not that great at resumes.
This weekend was for them.