This is a good comment. Some nits I'd like to pick:
* Companies aren't required to provide a level playing field to applicants. I think you've alluded here to discrimination against protected classes; that is, you're suggesting that someone could get an unnecessarily hard interview and use it as evidence that they were constructively rejected for their race or gender. That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful.
* In our experience, the resume conversation is the second-worst hiring signal, after the trivia interview we're discussing here. The ability to sound smart while talking about your experience involves a set of skills usually disjoint from those of the job. Every hiring mistake I've made in my career has involved someone who could "talk the talk"; in fact, many times, those people can also, if forced at gunpoint, "walk the walk", which makes their unsuitability all the harder to spot.
I'm an advocate for work-sample tests: have a standard set of (reasonably small) problems that are representative of the work you do and give them to all candidates so you can grade them. After we started doing this, it quickly became apparent that I didn't even need to have much insight into what reasonable or "good" solutions to our challenges were, because I could just look how good hires/candidates had solved those problems in the past.
That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful.
Wait, why is it unethical? It's frustrating and inconvenient and sucks for everyone but their friends. But, unethical? On what grounds? I don't have an obligation to give strangers the same favors I give my friends, do I?
You have an obligation not to waste people's time, especially if you are putting up the facade that they might actually be in the running. The modern interview process can take weeks or even months to get through. If you're just going to hire your friends, can you give the other candidates those weeks or months of their lives back?
The whole premise of interviewing and opening to the pool of candidates is to evaluate and give every applicant a fair chance after passing a minimum bar. If the whole point was to favor or employ someone (pre-decided or friend), then why this facade?
If you have a preferred candidate for a role and that candidate isn't being vetted by exactly the same process as the rest of the candidates, you're obligated to disclosure something to that effect. You might not come right out and say "you should know, we have a preferred candidate", but you need to say something.
* Companies aren't required to provide a level playing field to applicants. I think you've alluded here to discrimination against protected classes; that is, you're suggesting that someone could get an unnecessarily hard interview and use it as evidence that they were constructively rejected for their race or gender. That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful.
* In our experience, the resume conversation is the second-worst hiring signal, after the trivia interview we're discussing here. The ability to sound smart while talking about your experience involves a set of skills usually disjoint from those of the job. Every hiring mistake I've made in my career has involved someone who could "talk the talk"; in fact, many times, those people can also, if forced at gunpoint, "walk the walk", which makes their unsuitability all the harder to spot.
I'm an advocate for work-sample tests: have a standard set of (reasonably small) problems that are representative of the work you do and give them to all candidates so you can grade them. After we started doing this, it quickly became apparent that I didn't even need to have much insight into what reasonable or "good" solutions to our challenges were, because I could just look how good hires/candidates had solved those problems in the past.