[vog]

> Any place worth working isn't looking for the absolute best candidate for X at any cost

That's so true. If they absolutely need the best candidate, they are about to run a very risky project.

Good management means, among others, to ensure that new people have the opportunity to learn and to "get into" the project. If management requires the "best" developers, it really means that the management is bad and the developers are supposed to make up for that.

(Having said that, there are also people who are simply a sunken cost. That is, managing them requires more resources than the value they produce. However, that's the other end of the scale, and a separate topic.)