As much as I'd like to give this a go, my findings so far is that recommendations from anyone you don't fully trust already are as broken and prone to gaming as any other indicator in the job market.
As (almost) always, it's so ubiquitous that the German language even invented a word for that fact: "wegloben". Loosely translated as: praising someone away.
Why is it broken? Because while it's certainly possible that someone would recommend the best people they've ever worked with in the rare case of a sudden bankruptcy, chances are usually far, far higher that people try to recommend the weaker ones they had to let go in times of hardship to others, simply because they want to be nice and soften the blow.
Been there, done that. Multiple times.
If there's _really_ someone excellent, you move heaven and earth to keep them around in your own team.
It is an excellent point and very similar to the experience we had seen when we first started with this approach. We have seen that once financial incentives and limits on no of people whom you can recommend, were introduced, people were not just praising anybody and everybody.
Another interesting phenomenon we see is that people don't generally recommend people from their current emplpoyer, they generally do from previous ones or their college friends.
Let's say that you think highly of Ivan, who works at FooCo as a C++ developer.
When Ivan starts recommending Paula for her C++ skills, and Paula used to work at Bar, LLC where Ivan used to work, you can trust that to a certain extent.
When Ivan recommends Istvan for his Haskell skills, and they've never worked together, Ivan's recommendation might be worth less (he's doing a favor for a friend) or worth more (Ivan is recommending the leader of a local Haskell User Group.)
When Ivan recommend Maura for C++ skills, and Maura works at FooCo, that could mean:
Ivan sees Maura as a threat or an irritation and would like her to go elsewhere - low value
Ivan is getting ready to leave FooCo and is pre-emptively arranging exits for people he likes - medium value
Ivan is getting ready to leave FooCo and is trying to do as much damage as possible on the way out - high value
Ivan sees that FooCo doesn't have a place for Maura to grow and wants her to thrive - high value
As (almost) always, it's so ubiquitous that the German language even invented a word for that fact: "wegloben". Loosely translated as: praising someone away.
Why is it broken? Because while it's certainly possible that someone would recommend the best people they've ever worked with in the rare case of a sudden bankruptcy, chances are usually far, far higher that people try to recommend the weaker ones they had to let go in times of hardship to others, simply because they want to be nice and soften the blow.
Been there, done that. Multiple times.
If there's _really_ someone excellent, you move heaven and earth to keep them around in your own team.