Looking at online presences is an increasingly common way to find solid developers. 37signals wrote about how they only hire people based on their open source contributions in Getting Real: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch08_Actions_Not_Words.php
It's far from a universal technique, but you can tell a lot about someone's sincerity and true skill level by seeing books or blog posts they've written, their open source contribution and projects, their Twitter account, screencasts they've made, citations to talks they've given, and what not.
Geeks cut from all cloths who want more doors to open in future need to keep their digital "footprint" in mind and strive to maintain and build a good image and do great public work.
It's far from a universal technique, but you can tell a lot about someone's sincerity and true skill level by seeing books or blog posts they've written, their open source contribution and projects, their Twitter account, screencasts they've made, citations to talks they've given, and what not.
Geeks cut from all cloths who want more doors to open in future need to keep their digital "footprint" in mind and strive to maintain and build a good image and do great public work.