Yeah, you're right. I think in the context of your story, the board seems like they did not do you justice. I can say from my experience with engineering boards, they seem to be more transparent and will publish their decisions and the underlying opinions on how they reached their conclusions. I think that added transparency goes a long way to mitigate the scenario when a regulating body ends up serving as a mechanism to avoid accountability for the group they are intended to regulate.
I think I agree with your gardening analogy. It seems to me that the issue is often rooted in the hiring process. If a company was able to adequately assess the skills, they wouldn't need to rely on credentials, period. I think credentials become a lazy shortcut in many ways. Sometimes I think this is borne from the fact that many hiring decisions are made by people who are too far removed from the work being hired for, and thus need some pragmatic shortcut. It's easier for HR to say "you don't have the right degree" than for them to read and understand your resume to conclude "you don't have the right skills". The first is binary, the latter requires a lot of nuance.
I think I agree with your gardening analogy. It seems to me that the issue is often rooted in the hiring process. If a company was able to adequately assess the skills, they wouldn't need to rely on credentials, period. I think credentials become a lazy shortcut in many ways. Sometimes I think this is borne from the fact that many hiring decisions are made by people who are too far removed from the work being hired for, and thus need some pragmatic shortcut. It's easier for HR to say "you don't have the right degree" than for them to read and understand your resume to conclude "you don't have the right skills". The first is binary, the latter requires a lot of nuance.