I think appearance of this kind of voodoo in the hiring practices is a sign that the company has jumped the shark. It may still have many years of good earnings and still be a lot of fun and profit to work for, but once these symptoms appear, it is not on the way up anymore but on the way down, since it is no longer rules by common sense but by black magic of "we do not need to think, we have policies, policies don't have to make sense, they are there to be followed".