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I've long advocated for building a candidate pool for both hires and promos from a low baseline (with the option to opt out for promo), then hire/promote randomly out of that pool. Then fire/demote based on demonstrated incompetence.

The important thing isn't that you promote the best worker; the key is that it isn't possible for the ambitious-but-incompetent to game their way up.

We’re more or less hiring at “pass the baseline level of competence” and I don’t think we’re alone.

Wasn’t there some recent research that showed that hiring randomly actually works better on average?

Edit: Wait, that was promoting.

Fascinating idea. Do you know of a company that’s done this? Or maybe planning to do this?

No, it's just a half-baked idea I've had after reading people's arguments for and against various interviewing approaches.