Even at lower levels. I managed a team of 4 people at Yahoo, and whenever I was replacing someone, we'd send a spec to HR, negotiate a pay grade target to fit the department budget, and wait for the resumes, who'd first been sorted by external recruiters, then been further filtered by internal HR before they landed in my inbox.

This was true even when I managed hiring at a company of 50 people or so. At companies smaller than that, I've usually been the one to have a first look at resumes for my team.