What I see from your comment is: 1) There was no immediate need to hire 2) You turned down 4 candidates. C#/C++ experience is quite transferrable to Java except at very advanced levels 3) Finally, you promoted the guy who was there all along and could have been doing the job for the whole year already

Basically, there is a shortage of software engineers, but they must possess very specific skills and have lots of experience. All the others are not considered suitable candidates for most positions.

Do you live in a major tech center?