>Has hiring ever really worked, anywhere?

yes. Best place i worked at - we hired only by internal references and only people from our University. Up until the company grew around 200 people. We didn't do technical interviews, just a short talk. And we were among top employers, including salary-wise.

When you have high trust a lot of other processes become unnecessary. When that trust is broken, and surely a lot of grifters BSed their ways into jobs, that’s when all kinds of barriers were added.