I too have found applying for jobs via web sites to be a complete waste of time. Every job I’ve gotten in the past 20 years was either through a personal contact or a recruiter who reached out and contacted me based on my LinkedIn.

My experience exactly, it was only after actually calling a company about a job that everything clicked.

Sending an application using a recruitment website is like buying a lottery ticket with the same poor chance of winning.

And the easiest way to get a job offer is to know someone within the company that can recommend you.

Yeah I’ve never seen an employee recommendation not lead to at least an interview. This is one of the biggest lasting benefits of my MBA — if I’m ever out of a job, I can just find a company I want to work for and I probably know someone relatively influential there. It’s sort of a professional courtesy to recommend business school classmates even decades afterwards. These network effects are also why there’s often a bimodal distribution in outcomes between “top” schools and the rest of the pack.

I've been on both, but I also realize companies putting out a list of almost silly requirements that just about no person ever could meet has made many people 'stretch' their qualifcations too..

I have programmed against and Oracle DB becomes Oracle DBA experience, etc. Because when you do want an actual DBA that has a bit of programming background, you get so many applications for the first type.

Additionally, things like a Linux Systems Administrator can come in many different strenghts, and your going to attract a different level of skill by posting your salary range as 60-80k, than if you post 120-140k. But many employers don't want to post it at all, and then it seems you only get the low end guys applying.

One of the few actually useful functions recruiting companies can do is get the job salary range in agreement with the candidates desires before wasting anybody's time.