In between these opposite extremes -- your language clearly indicates that you think this level of what we might call "aggravated bias" (hiring not just someone in your network; but hiring them over a more qualified candidate, presumed to exist and be interested in your opportunity) is commonplace, or something close to it.
Such that in your mind, "including referrals in your hiring funnel" == aggravated bias (in the sense above), basically.
As to the bias stats you liked to: the findings interesting, to say the least -- if they can be validated. Unfortunately the link to the original Payscale "study" seems to be broken (if we can call it that -- since remember, this is the work of a private company, with products to push).
Can you show where I said anything approaching this? I do not believe this, nor do I believe I said or even suggested this to be the case.
And I'm confused about where I said anything about certainty. I'm not talking about how all companies operate all of the time, I'm talking about how some companies operate an unfortunate number of times.
> Holding everything else constant, from job title to industry to location, female and minority applicants were much less likely to report receiving an employee referral than their white male counterparts. More specifically, white women were 12% less likely to receive a referral, men of color were 26% less likely and women of color were 35% less likely. [1]
This is not good. Can we agree on that?
[0] https://wiki.c2.com/?ViolentAgreement
[1] https://hbr.org/2018/03/how-to-use-employee-referrals-withou...