A few years ago I moved to a new job having been programming for 2 years using C#, however this new company was mainly using VB6. I made the case for .NET and won, but one of the consessions I had to make was to use VB.NET and not C# (understandable as most of the other developers were already using VB).

Three years later it was time to move on, but when applying for jobs I couldn't get past the recruitment agents. I realised that when they were looking at the basic requirements (5 years experience) that they could not add 2 and 3 together to make 5. They were looking for 5 years in VB or C# not across both.

Frustrated I decided to combine my skills with a designer friend and start my own company. After two years of hard graft we are now looking for our first employee (a programmer), and this question has hit me again, but now I see the employers perspective. Why take the risk of someone getting up to speed when you have thousands of applicants to choose from.

So my question is this, if I define the requirements to be too narrow, I could miss the really great candidates. But if they are too broad it's going to take ages to go through them all. This will be our first 'employee' so the choice needs to be good, I can't afford to make a mistake and employ someone naff. Another option would be to choose a bright university graduate, and train them up (less of a risk because we can pay them less).

What have others done in this situation, and what would you recommend I do?