If you wanted to have a best-case situation, you would say the minister will only select from the highly recommended pile, because if you sat there, as I did, and went through these 80 candidates, there are bound to be some in the recommended that aren't the very best.
Dans le meilleur des mondes, le ministre ne retiendrait que les candidats chaudement recommandés, parce que quand vous avez 80 dossiers à étudier, il arrive que certains des candidats recommandés ne soient pas parmi les meilleurs.