Achieving successful projects is critical and the project manager's role is beyond dispute. Hence, successful recruitment processes that put critical competence requirements in focus could facilitate successful project coutcomes. It is fundamental that a certain project supports the organization's core product, because that is the basis for the organization's success in the first place. Therefore it is important that the project core product is viewed since it is supposed to support the core product. Further, it would be helpful to distinguish between general competences and core competences in order to avoid focusing on more or less insignificant general qualificaion requirements while missing to elucidate the core qualificaion requirements that should be decisive for the outcome. This paper aims at shedding light on the necessity of paying careful attention to project core product and project core competence as basic conditions for project success. Implications for practice and research are discussed.