Certainly it's more nuts than our modern default way of believing is, where the nepotistic strategy seems totally bonkers, and the "merit-based" way seems without drawbacks.

In a lot of ways, it's kind of nuts that we just expect to pull from the general pool of anonymous people. 

Undisciplined

econ

The big idea: Charge $1 to apply to a job (hear me out)

elvismercury

It's interesting that nepotism is not a bad solution in some ways, although we can all readily think of its shortcomings.  There's a reputation to maintain by both parties, there's identity to individuate, etc.  We discount those forces, but they're very powerful, and have offsetting virtues than does "merit".