> Right. The application process appears to openly prioritize marketing skills, which puts it in serious conflict with the stated goal.

Exactly. To quote [1]:

"The world is full of extraordinarily creative people that are struggling to fit in.".

If the candidate is struggling to fit in, he/she is probably not "the popular kid" or a highly successful self-marketer.

Another quote from [1]:

"Our goal is to build a decentralized network of young, creative and exceptionally motivated outsiders who don’t fit in to the traditional system.".

I personally would claim that such self-marketing is exactly what the "traditional system" is (among other things) strongly about. So making it a popularity contest is opposed to the self-stated/self-imposed goals.

[1] https://pioneer.app/