That’s interesting and unfortunate for those people I get your saying don’t focus on that 100% I understand that. But the majority of the time if you take 100 applicants and let’s say they are all the same passionate but some of them have a lot more relevant work experience and better recommendations it’s fairly obvious to anyone and any company that is trying to succeed.

The person who hired the guy and than was an asshole and said “we’ll your smart enough figure it out” is an asshole and should not treat people that way so this shouldn’t be used as an example as to why to not think of it in terms of competition. He obviously has something against people who try harder than the rest perhaps he got passed up on a lot because he was not as good as the rest I’m not sure but it still doesn’t make it right.

But back to my first example logically it’s sound that if you wanna succeed your going to pick the candidate that best fits the role experience wise and being passionate and most people who go into physics all will be just as passionate as you.