They weren't referring to Jacob's candidates (which they never seemed to have been told about, until the Japanese guy gets the message in the last season), the Others are always referring to Jacob's list of people who ought to join the Others (get under their protection from MIB), which might or not have been Ben's list all along. If it's Ben's, ironically, he rejected all the candidates because of their past/baggage.

It's not certain this wasn't Jacob's list for real, though. Jacob used to guide Ben through his dreams, until this stopped suddenly one day (when? We don't know) - and Ben kept that fact from his people. Or so Ben admits to Locke at some point... He started being manipulate by Smokey at some point... his knowledge of the wheel, of summoning the monster, Horace's cabin... that's all Smokey, not Jacob.

But there are things pointing to Jacob's real involvement with Ben and the Others in the early seasons. Jacob decided who could and couldn't leave the island, as Ben implies when he tells Hurley in the finale that's it's how Jacob ran things and that Hurley doesn't have to have the same rules. This implies it's Jacob who told Ben he could let Walt and Michael go, and Jacob was behind the expedition against the raft in s1, when Walt was captured, insuring the others, especially Jin and Sawyer I guess, would no longer leave...