Having been on both sides of this equation, I don't think I'm being unreasonable, and am well aware of the fact that good candidates and the "right" hire will rarely be the ones that check off a list of random attributes plucked from the thin air between the pointy-haired bosses ears. I'm not looking for a purple squirrel, and I'm not looking for someone with 25 years experience in rust or the like. I'm looking for someone who both has an interest in, and a capacity to do a somewhat unique job we need done. We've found plenty of qualified people, and hired some, many of whom tend to be fresh graduates with zero non-academic experience. What I've had a difficult time finding, even figuring out how to look for, are the people that have the interest or desire to work on this particular type of niche problem. Few developers out there seem to, and we've found even less, so the package porting/maintenance/management part of our job continues to be a burden for the whole development team. Thus my question. And thankfully, some insightful replies suggest that I'm mainly looking in the wrong category of candidates. All of which has nothing to do with matching an overly strict list of experience requirements.