I'd say there are a fair bit of elements of that sort of gating for government jobs here as well actually, but here that's not so important for earning prospects since they're mostly not all that well paid (exception for C-suite and equivalents, but my impression is those are almosts always awarded more on the basis of contacts and CV achievements).
Sorry if my objection came across as overly antagonistic, but what I was trying get across is precisely that while your experiences are unassailable as your experience, it may not be very representative of what's out there.
I wonder whether the guy who botted the profitability question (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48428763) could do genuine interest too, or is that inaccessible for examination over the Internet...