JohnFx

Ignore instincts during the interview. Trust instincts when you are down to the final decision.

It does if you accept the premise that your instincts will cause you to go easier on the people you like. For example, if you get the impression the candidate really knows their stuff, you might be tempted to skip over a bunch of questions because you assume they would get them right anyway.

Thanks for the tip. I didn't realize that was such a turn-off for people who read blogs.

Found the setting and disabled it for this blog.

I feel you on that and actually had it on the list on my draft version of the post. However, in the final version I decided to limit my tips to things the manager likely had some control over.

What applications the team is going to work on is definitely a factor for how attractive a job is, but it really isn't something you can easily change just to get new people in.