That doesn't always work. You may find that even when your inside contact says you are a "must hire," company policy inserts HR into the process anyway and rejects you based on the same trivial criteria.
I'm not saying don't try it, just don't bet your career on it.
I can't imagine what kind of successful career you could have in a company with an policies and an HR department so short sighted. If both HR and the company policies are at the point where they would reject you even though you've sidestepped HR to get the actual hiring manager to deem you qualified then there is more to worry about at that company than a career.
Ola, Andrew. I think your assumption that weird HR policies imply the company is bad is unfortunately incorrect. I say "unfortunately" because I wish it were true, since I wish could follow your advice and simply avoid companies with doubtful HR practices from the start.
I recently contacted 3 friends/acquaintances that work in 3 companies I'd like to apply at. These are engineer-driven companies that are thriving and have a good reputation as good places to work at. I still had to go thru HR in all of them.
In one case (a certain search/advertising company) the in-house recruiter cut my process short after a phone interview without asking me a single technical question. So I couldn't talk to the hiring manager (it's the job of the recruiter to filter down the number of people the hiring manager has to talk to) or even a technical peer for that matter.
Essentially they're randomly throwing a large % of the resumes in the trashcan, but they can get away with it because they receive a very large number of resumes to start with.
One possible scenario: sometimes a lot of good technology is locked up in a bad company (e.g. through acquisitions, mergers, and/or changes in management), and some engineers may consider it worth the risk of boarding a slowly sinking ship just to be able to play with cool toys that aren't available elsewhere.
Relatedly, it's easy to say, "That's not a place you want to work anyway," but there are other factors that influence one's decision whether to work at a particular place.
With a little bit of research, I'm certain you can get to someone who can put you directly in contact with the person filling the position.
In fact, I would would give major kudos to people who are clever enough to figure out how to get around HR. That's a useful skill in and of itself.