This is hard for practical reasons. The civil service needs to be a place where everyone can get a job without knowing someone inside, so a lot of best practice

This is hard for practical reasons. The civil service needs to be a place where everyone can get a job without knowing someone inside, so a lot of best practices in the private sector (referral-based hiring) don't easily translate. It's akin to the Postal Service visiting everyone's mailbox each day - not efficient, but important. THAT SAID, there are massive improvements that can happen in hiring - if agencies have incentives to pursue them!