We finally - FINALLY - have an accepted offer. Provided he's not secretly a criminal somewhere.
3rd time's a charm.
Also? The reports on skills mismatch are totally true. This isn't the only position we're trying to fill - our IT dept is hiring 3 positions - and it's just hard finding someone with the skills in place to do the job.
It's also very hard, from our perspective, to not suffer from "hiring fatigue" and just start going "Well, this one might be good enough." Where the deficits suddenly don't seem SO bad ("We can train them up.") and the positives are magnified ("I won't have to do THAT if we hire them!"). I wonder how much this plays into the employment numbers.
Re: NPCER: HIRED!