But there’s a technique that works for me: a candidate must be interviewed and judged by someone of the same gender. It all has to do with empathy. A man is a better evaluator when it comes to men candidates, because he can recognise certain patterns of behaviour. These patterns are not met in female candidates. And vice versa. 

I wish I knew this when I was in your position. But it’s never too late I guess.

The trouble is finding an artist on a budget. Many younger artists, without much work, may be very talented and willing to accept smaller jobs. So I think a test piece is perfectly reasonable and smart. 

I actually came across the job listing for this position today, I considered applying and began to research the company as well as the project to see if my art style was a good fit. In fact, thats how I came across this post. I’m glad I did! This feedback from a hiring experience is very useful.

This limits the quality of the artist you’ll find.

Good artists don’t have to do spec work and will likely reject working with you.

On the side of jail broken/actual phones in Greece, I would suggest to incorporate a service like localytics.com. It allows you to understand a lot about your user base, and one dimention can be the whether they have a JB phone or not.