I recently started getting serious about changing positions and I've become completely convinced that much of the so-called 'talent shortage' is caused by the j

I recently started getting serious about changing positions and I've become completely convinced that much of the so-called 'talent shortage' is caused by the job search process, from job listings through to interviews. Every step is unintentionally outrageous in a new way. Yep. Bilateral mismatch. Here's the dirty truth: people don't actually care about talent or even how good you are at your job. They just want to get a mission fulfilled. That'd be fine, with competent execution-- hire the right kind of person, get it done and done well, make your money and move on to something better. The problem is that it seems that 90 percent of them have no clue what they want or how to evaluate the relevant talents, and there's a hardcore Design Paradox effect going on as well. By the way, I'm pretty well-known at this point. I'm probably in the 96-97th percentile for programming skill and 99th for loudness. It makes job searching easier to be "a quantity" and I'm finally getting to a point where it opens up some great options... but I've still dealt with a lot of frustration. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Those you do hear back from will often mis-represent themselves and their businesses in an attempt to get hires. In fact, I was a victim of this at my current job. This is a problem in stodgy bureaucracies and VC-istan. In the former, it's because in Douchebagland, one's value is based on how many reports he has-- not what those reports actually do-- so bringing in marginal people through dishonest means improves the boss's resume. In the latter, it has more to do with the way companies are valued by investors and acquirers-- some $X million per employee.