system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The "Good ol boy" system of hiring people you know is in the best interest of the company

Say your hiring for a position at the widget factory and you have a friend whose son has some experience making widgets and you know he's a hard worker. 


Its in the companies best interest to go with the candidate they *know* will work hard VS gambling on someone no one at the company knows or has ever worked with. 


This is, I believe why networking is just as important as education and experience. 


I'm not talking about hiring a lop that can't do the job or isn't qualified, in my example both people seem to have the skills to get the job done.
gpt
Allow me to speak from the perspective of someone in academia.  Although our field is often susceptible to this as well, it's often said to be preferable to specifically *avoid* just hiring people that you know, and this is why:

Some industries, particularly academia, benefit from having outside viewpoints brought in.  Take a university, for example.  If the only people they ever hire are people who went to school there, they'll never be exposed to new viewpoints, because it's just a series of people all learning the same methods from the same people.

If you hire from outside, though, from other universities, now you've given your department the perspective of a completely different research group, with different expertise, and undoubtedly a lot of views that you've never heard before.  

Diversity is truly a good thing in the research world, so the system of simply hiring what you know actually proves detrimental to your overall progress.