I’m working on hiring recently. I’ve come to think that many things people base themselves on when judging applications are pretty useless.
There seems to be this focus on a few checkboxes. I understand why. there’s a sea of candidates, if you don’t have a list of objective criteria it’s hard to decide.
That being said I think most people go for criterias that don’t really mean much. For example years of experience or having a degree. One that really bothers me is people who ask questions about a gap in job experience. I don’t even understand why someone would think that not working for a few months or a year would be a valid indicator.
If someone took time for health (physical or mental) issues for themselves of a loved one, that’s a good thing in my books.

The most important thing that I look for in a CV is did they really want to apply here. Is their cover letter generic? on each job posting we ask 3 questions and we clearly state applicants who don’t answer the questions in the cover letter will be rejected. Still, only ~30% of applicants answer the questions.
It seems those candidates are at least qualified enough for an interview.
The interview is tricky and while it can weed out some folks, I worry it’s too hit or miss. Does the candidate know the answer or have they encountered the specific technical problem you ask about?
The interview stage is the one I’m the less certain about right now.

The one that gives the most insight is the trial. Seeing someone work in action is so much better. In a way I wish we could send folks directly there after the application but I suspect it would be too time consuming. At least in how we currently do it.
Perhaps there’s a way to implement it in a way that makes it scale-able.