[jayd16]

Well, there's also a difference between liking someone and liking to work with them. I've had a lot of coworkers I liked that I wouldn't bend over backwards to hire. That said, this process might not work at Google or what have you.

I've never worked in a company so large that I couldn't go a step further and actually talk to the hiring manager and tell them they would be stupid not to take someone's resume seriously. But it's more about fast tracking the interview than skipping it. No one is just going to blindly hire referrals. They shouldn't anyway.