What's actually happening in recruiting process that "raises the bar"?
As a developer of 11 years, I've been through a lot of interview loops. This last few months has been the most challenging set of loops I've ever gone through. It feels like you have to be perfect in each of your coding/system design rounds and your project experience to get a chance at an offer.
3 years ago (even in the midst of several high profile layoffs) I applied to 3 jobs, got 2 offers and I barely prepped for interviews.
This time, I spent weeks on hellointerview and neetcode/leetcode, and have 3 years of senior/staff level projects under my belt (and to that effect, I am not having a problem with those rounds). I was rejected after 3 tech screens, 12 onsites/loops, and got 2 offers.
This isn't a "why can't I get a job" rant thread (I got one), but rather, I want to know what is happening behind the scenes to make it so difficult for a skilled developer to get an offer. Is the bar raised in the debrief? Is the recruiter in the debrief urging everyone to be harsh? Or is it just "yes, he passed the bar, but so did these other 5 candidates and now we must rank and pick"?
And I'm asking here because most of us devs are in these debriefs. I've seen so many barely qualified candidates get pushed through at "high bar" companies. I'm just wondering what the conversations are like now for a full debrief team to say "well a year ago we would have said he crushed the coding round and the system design round.. but now? decline".