You're right about bad employees, but I've not found it difficult to weed those candidates out. At the same time, I don't fault a candidate for being laid off provided they have a good explanation[0] and/or they're otherwise a good fit.

As for bad jobs, even bad jobs need someone who is functionally capable of doing them. Sure, you have to be vigilant about filling those positions, but it's rare to encounter a "bad job" in this field that would be fine to have a terrible candidate in.

Regarding jobs being from internal candidates: It's interesting, because I hear that statistic rather frequently and often wonder where it originates or whether or not it has the meaning that is often attributed to it. Again, pulling from my anecdotal experience, though my resume was passed in from an internal employee for the two jobs I was most interested in[1], in one case my resume was handed to a sales person who reached out to me with a question about the company I had just been laid off from -- I had never talked to him or met him before and he lived about 100 miles away and in the other case, my sister handed my resume off to a friend of hers who worked there[2]. This friend and I met for the first time on my second day of work there. I don't even know if the guy is a software developer or not -- and that's the crux of the issue. If the recommendation is coming from someone doing the same/similar work on the same/similar team, that candidate is probably a good fit. If it's from someone doing wildly different work or who has no idea what a good candidate would look like, it's not much better than the blind solicitation from a recruiter. This is further complicated by the fact that many/most companies grant a referral bonus, incentivizing staff to solicit and (possibly) lowering the quality of candidates coming through that channel[3]. I'm really curious about others' thoughts on this, particularly those who've hired for their own companies.

The last issue with the 20% rule is that in companies that are dedicated to filling a diversity standard of some kind, it's hard to get there from internal employees unless you already have a very diverse staff. Reality being non-ideal, you tend to hang out with folks who are similar to you[4].

[0] There are plenty of reasons people get laid off/lose a job that have nothing to do with the competency of the employee. Companies go completely out of business, shedding all jobs or merge with companies where the whole department gets eliminated. Less "great" excuses are role elimination, though, this happened directly to me in January but I was offered a position for every job I interviewed for, so given appropriate context it can be fine as well.

[1] I interviewed at four places, all four offered me a position, two of the places were the highest on my list and I took one of my top choices. The two that were high on my list technically had my resume passed in from someone who already worked there.

[2] That it was my sister certainly helped -- she's been the CFO of a very well known global company and is currently the CEO of a mid-sized company -- her recommendation is trustworthy and people who know her know that she wouldn't embellish anything just because of family relation.

[3] I'm on the fence about this, though, personally. On the one hand, I'm less likely to recommend anything but the absolute best candidate for a role at company I work for if there's not a financial incentive -- it's nearly all downside otherwise. If the candidate works out, it's unlikely anyone is going to remember you sent that resume in. If the candidate is a mess, you get a ding on your record for recommending a fool and a subconscious ding to your own reputation that you associate yourself with fools (unfair as that is, I've seen it). If there's a financial incentive, there's always the "well, we paid him to do that; maybe he really needed the money" option which is bad, but not as bad. I got 11 people hired in at CompUSA when I worked there in my teens because they paid a $250 bonus. I had one really bad (as in, he stole things, and damaged things in fits of rage bad) recommendation that surprised my managers and me (he was a close friend and I had no idea he turned in to lunatic once he was being paid to do something).

[4] Though this does apply on racial/gender boundaries, one of the goals of diversity is to also avoid group think. Taking race out of the picture, you favor people who are like/agree with you and if the goal is to seek people who are hard working/passionate but not cut from the same cloth as the rest of the team, an internal recommendation will miss that more than it will hit it.