>You don't want an employee to join you because their top choices turned them down -- you want to be their first choice.

Why?

Unless you're offering FAANG levels of compensation, isn't it pretty arrogant to think you're anyone's top choice?

Candidates can easily lie to you about this. In fact in my last job hunt I was instructed to lie about this by recruiters who are actually being paid by the company I'm lying to.

I told every company I interviewed at they were my top choice.