And the flip side: As a developer, you want to work for a company whose people are smart and connected and passionate enough to attract talent through personal

And the flip side: As a developer, you want to work for a company whose people are smart and connected and passionate enough to attract talent through personal connections. You may not want to work for a company that has to resort to hiring by job boards, with the likely result of merely-average quality in your coworkers-to-be. This applies recursively to another level too: you really don't want to join a company that can't even make job-board hiring work and resorts to headhunting recruiters.