Well, I guess making the interview process incredibly unpleasant and dehumanizing is one way to reduce the flood of applicants. This also largely eliminates a

Well, I guess making the interview process incredibly unpleasant and dehumanizing is one way to reduce the flood of applicants. This also largely eliminates a very important aspect of interviews: they're two-way streets. The applicant is interviewing the company as much as the company is interviewing the applicant. Being unable to talk person-to-person makes that impossible.