There was a game show in Russia in 2000s where high schoolers had to answer ridiculously hard questions about Ancient Greece in order to enroll into MGIMO, a prestigious state university of foreign affairs, which was near-impossible to enroll in any other way (e.g. entrance exams) if you weren't a child of a top-level government official.

The contestants had to sit as the audience first and answer some pop-up questions before even having a chance to actually participate in the game show, and then win in a series of games (like quarter-finals, semifinals, finals...)

It really does look like modern job application process where you have to participate in a series of never-ending interviews and test tasks