Is there any way to categorically know who the BEST person is? I've been involved in hiring, it usually has come down to hair-splitting. I can't say that I've ever been in a hire where one person came in and was clearly "the best".
Mostly I have hired programmers. As an example, we have had 1 person who seemed to have more experience in the language we needed, someone with more overall programming experience, and someone with good experience but excellent at communication (since they often worked directly with clients communication was important). I don't know that I ever sat through a hiring cycle and had one person who was the best in the language we most needed, best in all the other languages we used, was the best communicator and at writing documentation, and would work for what we paid.
I think we tend to justify our decisions after the fact with "they were the best" when in reality we were splitting hairs we couldn't really see.
