I suspect he may be conflating recruiters and interviewers to some degree, if one assumes he is being honest. Recruiters know that an employee referral is more

I suspect he may be conflating recruiters and interviewers to some degree, if one assumes he is being honest. Recruiters know that an employee referral is more likely to yield a hire, so it makes sense they might use that to prioritise those people in terms of scheduling interviews. It would probably only rarely affect the end result (and if so, only on really edge-case candidates), but it would affect the speed to getting to on-site.