If you've offered them more money to do a less interesting job, certainly. Also, good programmers are often quite loyal, and don't want to leave their team in t

If you've offered them more money to do a less interesting job, certainly. Also, good programmers are often quite loyal, and don't want to leave their team in the lurch. There are plenty of reasons why you failed to recruit said programmers. Given that I enjoy my job, and I'm paid "enough", why would I even bother looking at your offer? Offering me a shit-ton of money because "this job will require an elite programmer" will get my attention. Not offering me more money tells me that either a) the job is no more challenging than my current one or b) you're the usual manager who doesn't want to pay a programmer what he's worth.