Once, that's pretty much how it works. Only instead of using a gopher to go through the slush pile, the agent will use an intern or an assistant who has been briefed very carefully about how to work.
The intern weeds out things that the agent definitely wouldn't deal with and sends form rejections; the rest gets looked at more closely and if anything shows promise, it gets handed to the agent for her to make the final decision. Everything else gets a form rejection from the intern.
The intern weeds out things that the agent definitely wouldn't deal with and sends form rejections; the rest gets looked at more closely and if anything shows promise, it gets handed to the agent for her to make the final decision. Everything else gets a form rejection from the intern.