One of the AHCS shirts

At the Automated HealthCare Solutions offices in Florida last Thursday morning, chief operating officer Donnie Reynolds was talking with fellow executive Veer Hossain about their hiring needs. Later in the day, Reynolds was reading about Microsoft's plans to cut thousands of jobs.

Shortly after 8 a.m. this morning, they were standing on a chilly street corner outside Microsoft headquarters, offering free cookies and shirts in an effort to persuade some of the Redmond company's excess talent to move to warmer climes. The message on the shirts: "Getting a cold shoulder in Redmond? Upgrade to the warm and fuzzy in Miami."

"We’re trying to do big things and we want smart people," Reynolds said later, explaining that the company has been growing steadily despite the difficult economic environment.

The company uses a wide range of Microsoft technologies, so under the circumstances, it made sense to go straight to the source.

The reception in Redmond has been positive, he said, with hundreds of Microsoft employees visiting the special Web site that Automated HealthCare created for them to submit their resumes.

"This is our Vista," reads one message on the site, next to a beach scene. "The weather is always sunny outside our Windows 7 days a week," reads another, next to an image of a clear seven-day forecast.

As of earlier this afternoon, Reynolds was sifting through the resumes and planning to head back to Microsoft for more recruiting during evening commute. He and Hossain will fly back to Florida tonight.

For those planning to apply, the bad news is that Reynolds is only looking for about a dozen people. The good news: The high temp will be around 80 degrees in Miami this week.

Update: As of 5:30 p.m, Reynolds reports that they gave out 100 shirts, 200 cookies and collected 57 resumes. He adds via email: "We had a wonderful day (but why is it so cold here???)"