Honestly, if I really needed a phone for finding jobs or other things, I'd buy a burner phone for that purpose, which I'd shut off when I've found a job.

I was interviewing for jobs the past 4 months, and asked nicely if they would be willing to use Hangouts instead of a phone call because of lots of robocalls. Third party recruiters might refuse(but I avoid them at all costs), but I've yet to have hiring managers or engineers be unwilling to do so. Small businesses are in a tough place, but an individual really does have plenty of options for avoiding phone calls.

EDIT: I'm being a little myopic here, since not everyone is applying for engineering positions. lol Employers outside SV probably won't be receptive to not using the legacy phone system.

I just took a Google Voice Number and put it in the resume. I get so many calls from recruiters and I will not even be notified as I don't have anything that connects them to my phone. I use the web interface of GV everyday end of day and go through the voicemail, or calls them back if I think they are legit. Again call back is also from GV number. So Google voice handles it for me where it even converts voice to text in voicemail.

Besides the fact many people may not want Google to listen to their phone calls and voice mails, I still receive robo calls on my GVoice number, albeit less.

I stopped putting my telephone number on my resume years ago. I realized I would start getting spam calls more often (and this was years ago) whenever I started passing my resume around to recruiters or applying directly to companies.

If they want to reach me, they can do so my email, and it has worked fine so far.

Nor people with children at school, or sick family members, etc...

Very much a captive audience.

I suggest using a dedicated Google Voice number for this. I have over 300 voicemails and texts from recruiters and they keep coming, even though my number hasn't been listed in years.