Everyone claims to "hire only the best." It's not a very meaningful statement and certainly doesn't help inform actions when it's what everyone tries to do alre

Everyone claims to "hire only the best." It's not a very meaningful statement and certainly doesn't help inform actions when it's what everyone tries to do already. Digging in more deeply, what does "best" even mean? The best among those already hired? The best among a pool of applicants? The best among companies in your domain? Among all domains? At any organization there will be people of various skill levels. Does hiring the best mean you never hire juniors? It is the best at any given experience level? It might even be hard to compare some people. E.g. what if you have two people, both excellent, but excellent at slightly different things? Rather than saying "hire only the best" I would perhaps instead suggest that you hire people who fit your culture and compliment your existing teams. A team that works well together, doesn't fight, doesn't get distracted, and is happy, is going to be efficient. Or, another way to look at it is to consider the "Secretary Problem" [1]. When do you decide to hire someone considering that you can get a stream n people applying over time? You don't want to wait until the last person since n can be large and you need people now not in a year. The solution is to not hire the first n/e people, then pick the first person who you deem to be "the best" compared to the first 1/e people. Hiring is complicated! 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem