To contextualise why former IR and paladins are pretty much out-of-rank:
[list][*]The Iron Roses are by and large made up of people who have [i]already proven themselves[/i]. The order as a whole is much stronger than any military force of remotely comparable size. Even the people who get in for other weird reasons are probably Rank 6 at a [i]starting[/i] point. Long story short? They're not comparable to average adventurers.
[*]Paladins, on the other hand, are both highly trained and supported by the church and the goddesses. Blessed equipment is ubiquitous, Reonites have literal flaming weapons... and as part of their duties they're often knights errant, who go out and do standard adventurer jobs which can be entirely unsupported. So maybe a paladin [i]literally[/i] fresh out of training would be Rank 6 or 7.
[*]Combining both of them you have a paladin that was exceptional enough to be inducted into a selective knightly order. There is no way anyone of that rank would ever be able to masquerade as a novice.[/list]

I think the rank breakdown is like...
1-3: Total novices or those with no talent whatsoever.
4-7: The average competency one would expect, whether by lack of experience or lack of skill or lack of drive to push harder. 
8-Knight: Experienced, strong, capable; generally at this point there's less and less jobs that you aren't ALLOWED to take (if any), just given a safety warning. Like, nobody's going to let a rank 7 go dragon-hunting. Page? Sure, just be careful... and ffs take friends.
Queen+King+Arcana: Congratulations, bards are writing songs about you.