“In fact, one thing I have noticed is that the people who I consider to be good software developers barely ever apply for jobs at all.”
Good point. The best developers I ever hired were (a) already working, (b) not looking, (c) referred, and (d) without a current resume.
Therefore, the people who I consider to be good software developers probably don’t have a current resume.
Therefore, the top 1% of good software developers probably don’t have a current resume.
Therefore, if you have a pile of current resumes, it probably includes none of the top 1% of good software developers.
Therefore, if you’re hiring from current resumes, your probably “not” hiring the top 1%.
[The only thing worse than sloppy probability and statistics is sloppy logic. But that’s OK, because I’m not in the top 1% of either.]