I once failed a quiz that would have granted me the privilege of frying chicken at KFC. There was no feedback on which of my answers made me an unsuitable fast food worker.
> What I have noticed is that the more menial, low paid and generally low desirable a job is, the higher that initial barrier is. I suspect it is to at least some extend intentional, though I struggle to understand why that is.
It's down to scale. Low paid work has historically had more applicants than positions. Poor conditions resulting in lots of turnover aid in that also.
It's fairly simple to find work in a small restaurant by walking in or knowing someone already there. Even if the owner/manager treats you poorly there's still a social connection.
Large companies have no social connection with their workers. They adopt language intended to dehumanise. Take "person/worker/employee" being replaced by "resource" as an example. Resources don't have feelings or families. That's then reflected in their recruitment process.
Software companies partially avoid this by have a smaller pool of candidates to draw from and lower turnover. They're - generally - incentivised to improve those processes because they don't want the right candidate to go somewhere else. Yet even then we see a lot of software companies with awful hiring processes.
> I do see start ups here in London who try to make the process smoother. I do not know how successful they are.
I don't think it's a problem that can be solved with automation. The solution is bottom up management. You need to trust the people you hire directly to hire wisely themselves. If you can't do that then maybe your company is too big.