Author here. I don't think any of these points are unreasonable.
I think the apparent conflict comes into play when we treat your point and my point like they are mutually exclusive. But they don't have to be - the resume system can be horrific and the alternatives can be bad in other ways, all in one swoop. It would honestly be weirder if it weren't so - it would imply a perfect process.
For what it's worth, I'm not exactly proposing a "system based on recommendations", and I'm not sure how that would really work if I was proposing it. I'm more saying that the kind of treatment people get when they can bypass the resume-first system is much more human - ideally, there would be a fix that would bring the resume-first system up to the nepotistic treatment level, but I don't claim to know what that is.
I think the apparent conflict comes into play when we treat your point and my point like they are mutually exclusive. But they don't have to be - the resume system can be horrific and the alternatives can be bad in other ways, all in one swoop. It would honestly be weirder if it weren't so - it would imply a perfect process.
For what it's worth, I'm not exactly proposing a "system based on recommendations", and I'm not sure how that would really work if I was proposing it. I'm more saying that the kind of treatment people get when they can bypass the resume-first system is much more human - ideally, there would be a fix that would bring the resume-first system up to the nepotistic treatment level, but I don't claim to know what that is.