you want to hire people for less than the minimum amount of money you think they are worth.

I don't think that's it.

That guy seems to be from some placement agency, so what he wants is to "send those people to the application process".

He doesn't really care that they're not going to hire them either way (since even that 135k person gets to the end of the application process and gets an offer they're going to tell them to fuck off because it's too low) he just cares that the in the part which is his responsability the result is maximum throughput even if it gums up the system further down (because too many candidates aren't suitable).

It's very much the typical corporate-world / outsourcer "I get my numbers high (and thus get a bigger bonus) and though luck if the rest of the system is fucked" mindset.