>- the applicant worked for one of the big four (Google, Apple, FB, Microsoft). If these companies gave the applicant a GO at some point, maybe you should too.

Be careful about that; said people are no longer at those companies for a reason. Often that reason is innocuous but there are people who slip through their hiring process and get washed out later.

The other thing to know is there's a lot more process at those giant companies, with good reason; "move fast and break things" doesn't work when you're making OSes or globally used search engines. Some people with long tenure there wind up more adept at managing process than the technical stuff.