Well, references gets back to the issue of identity. If I can forge identity, I can apply as someone else and use their references. Then when checking references do HR people have to say, "was she a brunette, medium build with thick framed glasses?" And that's not great at proving the validity of that reference.
Interviews can help, but it's only partial. Let's pretend to work in HR. We have a position open for a senior programmer with a generous salary. We get 100 applicants. Well, we could interview all 100 of them, but that would certainly take a long time. If we don't have credentials that we trust on any of them, the interview must be quite extensive. Microsoft's interviews last an entire day. So, in order to hire someone from this group, it takes 100 days of work (whether that's 1 person working for 100 days or 10 people working for 10 days, it's a lot of work). And that's basically just lost productivity. With salaries of $50,000/yr, we've spent roughly $20,000 to hire one person.
Now, let's say that we require a BS in Computer Science and we trust identity in out society (no impersonations). Maybe we can weed out many of them who are simply kiddies using Joomla. Beyond that, we could even discriminate by institution. MIT to the top of the pile please! And so on. . .
Identity allows us to trust the information we receive from other sources. When your buddy vouches that you're fun to one of his friends, that friend knows your buddy and accepts that premise. They don't need to test you - they've accepted the credential that your mutual friend has provided. Likewise, a degree from MIT in Computer Science vouches for you as a major league nerd. While an HR department should still challenge you in an interview, it can allow them to weed out those who have no one to vouch for them and allows for somewhat more relaxed testing.
Heck, I get most of my work based off my portfolio. If others can claim to be me, they are able to use the sites I've built as vouching for them.
In the long run, people who are forging are found out. Eventually, that person with the bogus CS degree doesn't know what they should know and they're out. But in the short run, there's a ton of waste. They're drawing a salary as they work slower and produce crappier code. If we are trying to be efficient, we want to eliminate that waste.
Why not use photos? Person comes in, you snap a photo and send it to the referrer. References checked.
And funny you should mention it - when I got hired to Microsoft nobody asked for my ID (until the day they needed to send the stuff to the tax-man which is long after the job offer was signed). I'm pretty sure nothing chnaged since. So you see, it works well enough.
I can see the point for your portfolio, but this seems like more of a business trademark issue than personal identity issue.
Interviews can help, but it's only partial. Let's pretend to work in HR. We have a position open for a senior programmer with a generous salary. We get 100 applicants. Well, we could interview all 100 of them, but that would certainly take a long time. If we don't have credentials that we trust on any of them, the interview must be quite extensive. Microsoft's interviews last an entire day. So, in order to hire someone from this group, it takes 100 days of work (whether that's 1 person working for 100 days or 10 people working for 10 days, it's a lot of work). And that's basically just lost productivity. With salaries of $50,000/yr, we've spent roughly $20,000 to hire one person.
Now, let's say that we require a BS in Computer Science and we trust identity in out society (no impersonations). Maybe we can weed out many of them who are simply kiddies using Joomla. Beyond that, we could even discriminate by institution. MIT to the top of the pile please! And so on. . .
Identity allows us to trust the information we receive from other sources. When your buddy vouches that you're fun to one of his friends, that friend knows your buddy and accepts that premise. They don't need to test you - they've accepted the credential that your mutual friend has provided. Likewise, a degree from MIT in Computer Science vouches for you as a major league nerd. While an HR department should still challenge you in an interview, it can allow them to weed out those who have no one to vouch for them and allows for somewhat more relaxed testing.
Heck, I get most of my work based off my portfolio. If others can claim to be me, they are able to use the sites I've built as vouching for them.
In the long run, people who are forging are found out. Eventually, that person with the bogus CS degree doesn't know what they should know and they're out. But in the short run, there's a ton of waste. They're drawing a salary as they work slower and produce crappier code. If we are trying to be efficient, we want to eliminate that waste.