I think this is part of why getting hired through connections is even more important in this field, and why it's also interesting that so many members of the field look down on that very process.

I agree it's not very meritocratic, but it DOES get people in front of people more qualified to pattern match their qualifications more quickly.

The problem with getting more people in front of the actual hiring team is the "charlatans" other people have mentioned in this thread will effectively waste the (very expensive) time of said team. Using a (less expensive) recruiter as a first stage seems rational until you discover the high rate of false negatives.

I've mulled this problem a lot and I still come up empty on a new, more effective way to solve it.