Maybe part of it is the relatively new idea of HR as an entirely separate department in a business. I remember when I would come in for a job (way back when) and they didn't turn me over to an official interview or personnel guy. I talked to the guy I was going to be working for. He knew what he needed, knew the job inside and out, and could figure out if I was worth the oxygen I would use up or not. Hell, I never even heard of "HR" as a position until I was in my thirties. By then I was carving my own road.

If you're a professional "hiring person," you don't know the business like the people running it, and you have to go by "policies." Hence the hiring formulas.

This is just a theory, but wouldn't mind some input from those who have spent more time in the trenches than I have.