The unasked question is where you believe the engineers are who can make your project a success? Are they out looking for work? Or are they happily ensconced in other work?
There was a prevailing belief, at least a number of years back, that the best engineers were not found on the open market, so you had to actively seek them out. Maybe that isn't the way hiring managers approach the field anymore, though.
My blog post goes through the process for inbound candidates, which accounted for the majority of our hiring. We did actively try to poach folks as well. I spent literally 4 years trying to recruit one of my friends out of Microsoft.
For these folks, you need to sell, sell, sell your vision, product and team. They're not going to switch unless they're really pumped. All of this work to get them excited happens before the interview process even begins.
I think for these people the difficulty of the interview process is a small issue relative to the risk of switching away from a job they already like.