I can definitely get behind the concept of putting in regular effort to show that you can produce consistent results, and it goes without saying that any fictional adventurer guild should properly ensure they are training people for the jobs they will do. These stories just never produce a realistic response to a hypercompetent rookie. The staff shouldn't ignore him or just hand him free rankups (which is what we usually see, one of the two.) They should be identifying what he needs to prove the next rankup so it CAN be expedited and still be justified.