and we'd be at risk of risk devolving to a state where having to filter through webs of malicious falsehood in any hiring situation where the candidates are known to each other was the norm rather than the exception.

which sounds to me like the state we are in w.r.t. election to political offices.

My point is nobody hires people for ordinary jobs the way we collectively hire a president. We are extremely passive, and don't manage the process. There is a field I am very interested in called Social Epistemology (it's a divided field with one part being excessively postmodern and relativistic; the other side, which interests me, holds that there really are such things as truth and falsehood, and the biggest name in that area is Alvin Goldman). This field is very interested in institutions, such as the law court in its different forms, that have tried to come up with procedures and standards (like selectivity in the sort of evidence you will listen to) that try to improve the chances of coming to the right conclusion. There is quite a lot of emphasis on law courts, but it occurred to me that hiring committees do something similar; they require things like resumes, and have a systematic way of questioning candidates rather than say to candidates "Come and put on a show and we'll see what we think of you".