Call it compassionate capitalism or a desire to do good in these darkening times, but one US manager has placed a "for hire" ad online touting his developers' skills just one day after being forced to axe them.

The ex-boss of three PHP, MySQL and Perl programmers has turned to Craigslist touting the "amazing" trio's skills after reluctantly laying them off.

The team certainly combines an inspiring set of skills and personality types. There's the shy-yet-dependable geek capable of cranking out code you never thought possible, the enigma obsessed with performance, code reuse and contributing to the open-source community who writes code like poetry, and the Fortune 500 guy who you'll want to lead your development team.

"I'm posting here today in hopes that someone out in the world is looking for some seasoned talent, people who can get things done for you," the Washington DC-based, anonymous former manager said. "I will personally recommend all three of these guys".

As talk of recession grows louder, employers should take note: there are ways to hand out pink slips, and ways to hand out pink slips.

Those interested in hiring this trio should go here.®

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