[hkarthik]

I've heard this a lot. And usually the people espousing such hiring practices are C players when it comes to management.

While it sounds really good in theory, I think it's very difficult to discern an A player from a B player without letting biases get in the way (college attended, degree attained, GPA, etc).

Generally, I advise people to find what works for them, build a team that has consensus on hiring practices, and stick with it. But just because you found something that you think works, doesn't mean you've built a team of A players.