In Spain, we have a quite idiosyncratic system. There is very little mobility, people typically stay in the university where they graduate. A PhD student often starts by doing their Master's or even Bachelor's thesis with a professor. If the professor is happy, they can suggest the student to apply for competitive grants to study a PhD, or hire them directly with grant money (the PhD here is typically seen as a job, almost all PhD students get a salary).

Right after the PhD, people typically apply for entry-level positions at that same university. At that point, there is some "weeding out" (no positions for everyone) but if you get one, you're pretty much set for stability. You need to endure years of crappy salary and a lot of evaluations, but if you can generate a decent amount of publications (even if not stellar) you will typically promote until you eventually get to a permanent position. In theory, promotions are public calls open to anyone, but in practice the "home" candidate almost always wins because no one wants to kick out someone who is already working there and familiar with the specific research topic, courses, etc. to hire someone who would have to learn from scratch. Plus, if you do that, the disgruntled candidate will then try to kick others out of their positions to take their place, people don't want to open that Pandora's box, so most promotions (e.g. from associate to full professor) have only one candidate, the "home" candidate.

This system has obvious problems: first, nepotism is easy, because the real selection (not the promotions that are mostly just a formality, as I explained) is done quite early and typically the professor has a lot of say on who to hire. Mostly professors want the best candidates, because there is a lot of competition for grants, salary complements, etc. (everything is evaluated and measured here), but sometimes people will just favor a friend, relative or whatever. Second, mobility is almost impossible, because you'll practically never be able to get a non-entry-level position from a different university. Let alone applying to a Spanish position from outside Spain!

This system is frowned upon, many in society view university as corrupt, so there is a lot of push to go towards an "Anglo-Saxon" system as described in this post. Now they are emphasizing a second way to become a professor, by applying to a competitive postdoc with forced mobility to the government, as universities are incentivized (with money) to create permanent positions for people who have that.

It's good that there is this alternative as a backup for good candidates, and I would definitely support other measures like making selection for entry-level positions fairer or reserving a percentage of positions for outside candidates, but after seeing accounts like this, I think our system is less bad than it gets credit for and it wouldn't be a good idea to go full Anglo-Saxon.

For all its faults, at least here you finish your PhD at 27 years old or so (it's 3-4 years, not 5-6 as in the US) and not much later, you already have an idea of your chance for a position. Better to be unfairly excluded due to nepotism at that point in your career than 10 years later, like the post seems to be describing. And if you leave for industry, the PhD was a job with a normal salary so you haven't paid too harsh an opportunity cost.

Under the more "modern" Anglo-Saxon system, it's common to be in your late thirties doing postdocs, moving from place to place (something that most Spaniards don't want, here family ties are stronger than in the US and most people want to stay close to family) and with difficulties to form a family or settle down due to uncertainty and constant mobility. And if that were implemented here, we wouldn't even have the consolation of a good salary, as academia is quite underpaid here - so I think it would actually lower the quality of the staff hired by making the academic career quite undesirable for many...

I wonder if there is an ideal system with the best of both worlds. I have good vibes about France (I know people who got permanent positions there soon after PhD, under what seemed like a merit-based system with committees) but maybe I'm just idealizing due to ignorance, as many Spaniards do with the Anglo-Saxon system which they view as fair and free from corruption.