Not necessarily. Research requires a different combination of skills - 1) ability to quickly read a research paper to get the main gist, 2) ability to estimate if a contribution is incremental or novel, 3) writing a coherent research paper, 4) defining a good experimental setup etc.
> Man, there is no ego boost like interviewing several people who have 7+ years of experience and seeing that they’re absolutely inept.
Getting ego boosts from others' lack of skills can often cloud the recruiter's judgement about a candidate. This can result in not-so-great recruiting decisions sometimes. My two cents.