I did RFTA and while it gives a pro/con list it doesn't give ANY suggestions on how to fix things. So if you want bullet points on what the author considers good and bad about current practices by all means read it. Otherwise you can quite easily skip it.
The first problem - the job posting. Very rarely are they on point for what they're hiring for. Most of them are laundry lists of skills and generic "Must be a self starter" terms. And they're not really reviewed very well. We've all seen "Need X years of experience in Product Y" where Product Y was released X-2 years ago. That shows they just updated the version without updating the amount of exposure they want. Sloppy and all too common. I'm not even going to get on my rant about the companies who try to make their job listings 'fun'.
The screening process itself is broken. Resumes are fed into a database that spits out keyword matches.Humans rarely get to see the resume before HR decides who gets to move forward. As a database person I game the system by having a clearly labeled metadata section with nothing BUT keywords.
Initial HR screening interviews. I know this is kind of HR's function but they're useless since they're reading from a list of questions with set answers. And those questions (and answers) may no longer apply but are the ones on file. Again a barrier to getting the right people to look at candidates.
If you're lucky enough to navigate to an actual interview then you're in iffy territory. You're at the mercy of people who have their own agendas and priorities. Plus if they're pulling in staff members they don't know how to interview. I've sat through some truly terrible interviews where the questions obviously were given to these people and when the deviated it was off into the hinterlands of things that were never mentioned as part of the job.
A coworker just interviews and while the job description was very much in line with his skills the entire process has been focusing on ONE aspect of it that is an outlier for the job they listed. It's quite obvious that's where the company's pain point is but if that's the kind of person they wanted to hire they shouldn't pull a bait and switch on applicants.
My solution? First - make sure the job posting (and job description) match what the job is. Second - Take HR out of the initial screening. It takes time but the hiring manager should look over all the submitted resumes. Third - Have HR schedule the interviews for selected candidates and tell them the salary range if that wasn't already on the job posting. That's more in line with their jobs. Fourth - Interview in the way you would want to be interviews. Ask about prior experience. Ask how they would think through problems. Ask questions that show if they're familiar with the language rather than giving problems for them to solve. Find out their thought process and how they approach a problem. Fifth - This one is iffy but let the team members at least have some time talking with the candidate. If you're adding to a team then you want both sides to be a match. Sixth - Have HR contact the selected candidate with the news and do all the pre-hiring work they do best.
If you can't tell I don't like HR inserting themselves into the process. Their job is to do paperwork and to prevent the company from being sued. They have no business hiring technical people. Have them in at the beginning to contact the candidates and at the end to .. contact the candidates and make sure the person can be hired. Otherwise a hiring manager needs to get their hands dirty and FIND the right candidate out of the applicants.
However too many companies are wedded to their current practices. The company where I work is snail slow at hiring so we lose candidates who take other jobs before we can ever get them in the door for interviews. We lose more between the interview and the offer for the same reason. There's other reasons now but those are management stepping on their dicks rather than the fault of anyone in the process.
So yes. The process is broken. It's the fault of companies with inflexible hiring practices and hiring managers not willing or able to stand up and have the process work better. What would I do to fix it? I've listed out the flow above but I don't see it happening.
One last reminder. When you're interviewing at a company you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. Ask questions. Ask difficult questions since this would be where you're working if you get selected. You learn a lot about how your manager is going to be as a manager by the way they answer the questions and the way they respond to the questions. Do even more of that if you get stuck in front of the team for an interview. You'll find out very quickly if you want to be part of that place.