[closeparen]

Having only an interview and resume to go on is really a nightmare scenario as hiring goes. When a team already knows who they want to hire, they shouldn’t have to sneak it by the institution - the institution should celebrate! Positive professional reputation / recommendation by another skilled practitioner makes for a much higher quality hire than strong interview performance.

[mikejb]

That is the ideal. But it can be abused as well,which is why I think the regulation exists. So the best person is hired, and not the guy who happened to be a good friend of your boss.

The tricks applied still allow that, but they produce a clearer paper trail.

[closeparen]

Reputation networks deal with that just fine. If someone’s recommendations/referrals turn out to be incompetent, it reflects back in the person making them.

[mikejb]

The friend has to be significantly less competent than required for this to work, but they only need to be less competent than other candidates to have a negative impact on hiring.