I can see HR's desire to follow some sort of procedure though. If you let any manager hire anyway they so desire, it could open the company up to discriminatory hiring practices. By having a codified (if ineffective ) "procedure", they can use this as a defense in a lawsuit and say "look, see ? Everyone gets hired the same way at this company, and the plaintiff was subjected to the exact same scrutiny as everyone else."
I agree that some standards are helpful. However, I think for the sake of the discussion on this thread, we are talking about all sorts of unnecessary, buzzwordy things that are absolutely obviously not necessary, and in fact are even harmful and in some cases may even increase the chances of discrimination lawsuits, and that this is openly understood even by the HR managers who set such policies, and that they are still not changed or even re-evaluated under some framework providing even a tiny consideration for their human impact.
One of the modern classics is ageism in hiring, which is baked right into the whole process in a lot of ways that dangerously straddle the boundary of legality. HR types place a high emphasis on this because hiring younger engineers means they can pay lower wages and those younger engineers have less experience about how employers treat people, so they are less likely to expect basic, dignity-preserving job features, like private working conditions, respect for work/life balance, etc.
Of course, they can't come right out and say they are trying to hire cheap dummies who don't know they are being swindled. So instead they invent code words like "thrives in a dynamic environment" and "handles vague and conflicting business needs well" which are just short-hand for "this worker will not enact the obstinate, incredulous frustration that they rightfully should enact upon learning how we plan to actually treat them" -- which often screens out more experienced candidates who know what shit companies try to pull.
This is how a lot of the nonsense bullet points in a job ad get there. It's also how a lot of nonsense company handbook policies get there too. The bits comprising those characters didn't just get flipped by cosmic rays and randomly appear in the job ad or the company handbook. HR and legal staff placed them there, with intention and forethought -- which, if you're really thinking clearly, means that most job ads are frightening windows into how the company conceives of its workers.
The doesn't actually work if your hiring procedure is actually discriminatory.
There is a concept called disparate impact in US employment law. That means your employment process can't have a disproportionate adverse impact on a protected class, unless there is an actual business requirement that causes the disparate impact.
An example would be: if your job requirements is "must be able to lift 70lbs" it probably will have a disparate impact on women and the disabled. This is fine as long as the job actually requires heavy lifting (such as a mover). But if you require candidates to be able to lift 70 lbs for an office job - then it's illegal discrimination even if everyone who is hired meets that criteria.
I think most people in middle management, especially HR, are looking for "plausible deniability". They want their actions to appear defensive enough to keep their job. So don't hire self-taught, always demand a degree. Follow "industry standard" hiring practices. etc.
They don't understand tech and they don't need to. If something goes wrong they need to be able to demonstrate it's not their fault.
