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.
