Funny, I've actually been thinking about this problem recently and can totally relate to your dating analogy as I see it similarly. As you know, there are several steps in the hiring pipeline, from introductions (getting to know one another), to qualifying (what you're talking about and which has n > 1 iterations- phone screen to inhouse to multiple inhouse depending on level), to on boarding, etc. You initially want to apply a speed dating filter to weed out the few of interest (a guy/girl can walk into a bar and within 30 secs tell which individuals is of interest to them. You want to get there!)
Moving on to the initial qualifying state, I think the one mistake you're making is assuming that only your company can validate this unknown person. To truly scale, we need to figure out a trust scheme (we sort of have it already with our belief in top ranking schools - you mentioned it is a crappy metric, which I agree, but this has historically been the baseline). We need sort of an SSL certificate like system where some third party(ies) can qualify individuals for your company. Again we sort of have this (on the technical front) with top coder scoring, online tests, SO rating, Git Hub Repo, etc. We need to come up with a standard "reputation" service, most likely related to skill, that can be applied in scale.
If anyone cares to bat around some ideas, I'd be an interested party.
Moving on to the initial qualifying state, I think the one mistake you're making is assuming that only your company can validate this unknown person. To truly scale, we need to figure out a trust scheme (we sort of have it already with our belief in top ranking schools - you mentioned it is a crappy metric, which I agree, but this has historically been the baseline). We need sort of an SSL certificate like system where some third party(ies) can qualify individuals for your company. Again we sort of have this (on the technical front) with top coder scoring, online tests, SO rating, Git Hub Repo, etc. We need to come up with a standard "reputation" service, most likely related to skill, that can be applied in scale.
If anyone cares to bat around some ideas, I'd be an interested party.