[ewjordan]

If there are five equally inexperienced applicants in the wings that will get along with everyone without having an attitude-smackdown first, then that's absolutely a reason not to hire them.

The worst problems I've ever seen on teams spring from people that are arrogant and standoffish, followed closely by people that are too dogmatic about technical minutiae and best practices in the face of situations that require flexibility (my classic example is the prototyping team that spent two weeks setting up an automated testing and deployment infrastructure, even though they only had six weeks to do their game prototype).

I'd take a pleasant junior that's really green but is happy to learn how to code better over a more technically proficient asshole that needs to have manners jammed down their throat any day - tech skills can be taught to a newbie, personality cannot. People have had a couple decades to cement personality habits as junior programmers, so those are mostly fixed, whereas tech skills are super fresh and malleable.