[michaelt]

> How do other industries do this?

There's lots of other ways, but some of them suck.

Some fields attach a lot of weight to your alma mater, maybe they only hire people who studied law at Yale or Harvard.

Some fields require not just a degree, but also years of study under an industry veteran. Sometimes that also involves hazing like working 70-hour weeks, for some reason.

Some fields require work-sample tests where you show up at a given location and demonstrate your abilities on demand.

Some fields require not only a degree, but also years of working for free in order to break into paid work. And the paid work is far from guaranteed, that free work only pays off for 10% of people.

Some fields don't offer permanent employment, instead hiring people for much shorter periods - so bad hires can just not be rehired for the next project.

[zamnos]

Some fields have a literal test you have to pass to get a license which allows you to practice that field, and some even have laws that criminalize practicing in the field without said license.

Given surgeons don't have to do live pancreatectomies as part of the interview process, I'm not convinced that's such a bad thing.