Speaking as someone who is currently hiring, you have to go through a vast number of resumes from completely unqualified people via sites like LinkedIn. Too easy for people to just push the button to apply on the off chance. Working with a good recruiter is better since they do some of that filtering for you.

Once you have some candidates, most of them are exaggerating various aspects of their experience. The only way to figure this out is to talk to them, so interviews are necessary.

First is just a quick screening call to see if they have any idea what they're talking about. If they pass that, you need more of a deep dive with an SME. This takes time from your talented SMEs (they have a job to do!) so you only want to pass them actually possible candidates.

After that (depending on role) the company may want interviews with senior management, and HR usually want to weigh in on one too.

After all that, it still does not produce reliable results, although I suspect they would be even worse without them.

Open to other ideas on how to do this effectively.