There are ridiculous inefficiencies, but they exist do to some completely screwed up assumptions people make, or that they just blindly follow out of deference to common wisdom.

In order for someone to make money solving these problems, they'd need to convince the parties involved that their assumptions are incorrect, and that they need to use a new approach to hiring. For instance, a hiring manager who believes that the clerk they are seeking must have a bachelors degree, n+ years of experience, and whatever else. Why; because this person has a large number of assumptions they are working off of, and each of these requirements is a manifestation of some subset of those assumptions. And, in the case of the companies tied to this article, they have to already be employed.

Changing these assumptions is amazingly hard to do, because their existence represents a cultural problem, not a knowledge problem. This would be like a company trying to make money solving racism when most everyone in society is a racist. It is incredibly hard to do; people will go bankrupt rather than give up what they've believed all their lives.

I'm reminded a number of months ago of a post you made in reply to one of mine where you discussed the cultural implications of quitting a permanent salaryman position in Japan; you pointed out that anyone who does this will likely never find themselves as more than a contractor ever again. This is really just a different manifestation of the same basic cultural bias; if you are unemployed, our cultural mores dictate that this should reflect badly upon you. If there is a solution to this problem here, I think it would have to look similar to the solution to Japan's bias toward unemployed salarymen.

But, I could be wrong about this; in fact, I'd like to be wrong. It would provide me additional faith in the resiliency of humanity. I just can't see us being that ruthlessly introspective without something far more horrible than high unemployment to motivate us.