[jrd259]

Our incentive is not (as you imply) a selfish desire to enrich ourselves though artificial scarcity, but rather the knowledge that a weak team member hurts everyone and is hard to get rid of. At my firm we have the explicit goal of hiring people who are better than half the developers at similar level. A little math will show you that if you do not do this, your average talent level goes down over time.

[jbn]

Oh I wasn't thinking of selfishness in this situation (I didn't use that word, but i was thinking of how purely rational economic actors would act), merely that there is a subconscious incentive to act one way. Of course you are right, interviews serve as a filter, one wants the newcomer to increase the output of the team, not decrease it ;-)