Context: As been involved in QA hiring positions from last couple of years in different companies, I am seeing a trend QA is getting more and more technical.Now it is reaching to a point where line is getting blurred between QA & Developer in teams working on cutting edge technologies.On the other hand communication has always been and will be important for QA positions.

I have always seen a strong co-relation between communication skills & technical skills. In general candidates with higher technical skills are not super communicators and excellent communicators are generally not very good technically.Although exceptions always exist but they are few and nobody doubts hiring them!

Dilemma :A lot of times been in dilemma situations where between two candidates it becomes hard to choose where one is excellent communicator vs. other is technically superb but not vice versa.

Question: How my senior QA fellows in similar situations, take call when get into these difficult situations of selecting QA candidates?