Well if you're letting me order it the way I want it, I wan the candidate pool to be infinite and to all be extremely qualified :) What I'm actually finding is

Well if you're letting me order it the way I want it, I wan the candidate pool to be infinite and to all be extremely qualified :) What I'm actually finding is the candidate pool is getting larger but the quality hires are about the same. Ostensibly this is a function of the pay rate pressuring people to join the hiring pool. >All other things being equal, wouldn't you want a larger candidate pool? I >have done some hiring and while it was a grind to screen applicants, that >beat the pants off of not having any applicants. No argument, I have played that game and its not fun. For the sake of argument though if we look at the total number of candidates you want to hire (1) then any pool size over one does create more work as it grows (I'd like to avoid that if at all possible :) ). Assuming the individual that matches your criteria is in your pool at all (again an oversimplification). I also can't stress enough aptitude as a component of a good dev, which you alluded to. I've never seen a dev who was great (whether self taught/code school/cs degree who had no aptitude for the work. I've also seen people with tons of aptitude and no credentials absolutely own people with phd's and masters degrees in a tough problem. Before we had colleges/code schools there were always engineers, how do you think we got the wheel?