CS recruitment opens the door to underqualified and inexperienced staff while closing the door on those with relevant qualifications and experience

I recently interviewed for a policy role in a policy area that I had extensive expertise in through academia and my professional career. I felt the interview went extremely well and the panel clearly liked me. All my examples related to my experience in the policy area, while also hitting the requisite behaviours. I passed the interview with good scores, but since I scored lower than somebody else, I was put on the reserve list. When the lovely hiring manager called to let me know the bad news, they said something like “it’s a shame because you were the candidate with the most relevant policy background and I’d encourage you to reapply in the future”.

I happen to know a number of people who I graduated uni with who jumped straight into policy roles at the same level without any relevant experience. They literally went from minimum wage customer service roles to playing a key role in a policy area they didn’t know the first thing about when they started.

I’m annoyed I was rejected (yes, I’m a sore loser, lol), but also, as a taxpayer and citizen with a vested interest in government executing policy well, surely this is an appalling way to recruit - especially for policy?