[lacker]

Nowadays, journals and peer review solve the problem of, people need to make hiring decisions and funding decisions. But these decisionmakers don't have enough technical expertise or time to evaluate all the papers from all the applicants.

The decisionmakers do have enough time to learn which are the most prestigious journals in the field. So, they can pick the people with the most papers submitted to prestigious journals, or at least use that to filter applicants down to a short list for closer examination.

[cryptonector]

It sounds funny, but it's true.