Either way, really - many in-house recruiters do actively source via LinkedIn and encourage inbound messages there from interested candidates. But it seemed like this was a suggestion to use LinkedIn as a front door rather than as a back door.

The bigger the employer, the more likely it is, that after a first recruiter phone screen, you still havebto go through the normal recruotment / application process, for compliance reasons mostly. No big deal, as the recruiter is working on your behalf on the other end, if he decided to invite you to an interview with the hiring manager, to fast track you application through whatever arcane or byzantine process there is.

Yeah. The recruiter doesn’t bypass the process, except maybe the first stage. They just get you into it with enough attention to get at least a first conversation, and usually a polite way to nudge the company for a response if they get slow for whatever reason. Still sometimes helpful.

Honestly, an internal employee referral helps in similar ways, especially from an employee who knows you well in a professional context. But that isn’t always available.