This is just a hot take, and personal observation of mine, but the smarter / more intelligent your applicant pool becomes, the less financially motivated they s

This is just a hot take, and personal observation of mine, but the smarter / more intelligent your applicant pool becomes, the less financially motivated they seem to be - i.e., their main motivation is to work on interesting and challenging things. Of course, those things are not mutually exclusive - but fact stands that almost no-one that joins some megacorp, gets to work on the most challenging things from the start (well, other than certain R&D groups). The "golden" pool of applicants would be those that are above average intelligent. They're more financially motivated, willing to jump through the hoops, and confirm to the system, if it guarantees some huge payoff in the end (financial gain, power and prestige, etc.). These applicants are the bread and butter to sectors like high-finance and management consulting. And in recent years, they've jumped ship to join tech.