The statement, "an applicant must “hack” into our backend to drop their resume. As a result, we don’t get distracted by unqualified candidates" is interesting.<p>In particular, equating those who don't have web site hacking skills with "unqualified candidates" is quixotical given this is a position for a site for purchasing concert and arena tickets, and is not work circumventing site security.
We did something very similar to hire our designer with Fanvibe (now we're with beRecruited.com) - we ran a normal job post, then asked everyone to submit a rough mock-up of a mobile site design for Fanvibe in addition to their resume and portfolio. We quickly got to three top options out of 100, interviewed those 3 and hired a designer who is amazing and still works with us. I'm a big believer in "real-world" challenges before hiring someone<p>EDIT: We likely would have not even interviewed our top 3 choices based on resume / portfolio alone
While most of this is fine, you shouldn't use the work candidates produce as you risk falling into a huge legal quagmire involving IP rights, employment law and exclusivity contracts.
Clever hack... you're gaming the job application process to receive free PR for your company from aspiring applicants who are doing pro bono work. All that free advertising essentially done by an army of interns working on spec, who hope to be the one winner who is offered employment. One downside is that if enough people are applying earnestly, Google could think you're a content farm. :)
maybe the best candidate would be the one who hacked into their blog and and added a few thousand votes to their own post...<p>having said that, i'm not sure i would want to do business with a company with a hackable backend at all...