It is even weirder in my case. I am not applying for any jobs, recruiters reach out to me. After exchanging plesantries with HR ladies at video calls they ask me what are my salary expectations. I explain them there are two options. For full time employment I expect them to give me their best offer for me to consider. For consulting I expect them to give me exact goals so I can give them exact quote. I mostly never hear back from them, in rare cases they say their technical colleagues reviewed my resume and decided I am not appropriate candidate. I suspect most of them are just mining data about salary expectations.

If OP is a hiring manager, they're on the other side of the job market right now. It can be true that managers have no problems getting jobs and the rest of us do.