and I'm in an underrepresented group, we all have the ability to conform our experiences to the reason that matches what other people say will limit our opportunities. It is equally important to weigh each experience against the similar experiences. I've seen plenty of linkedin posts and blogs about people bragging about their quests to get competing offers in tech, some interviewed at 60 companies and did 100 interviews, when my tolerance is 12 companies and maybe 15 interviews. Some did 700 hours of leetcode, where my tolerance is maybe 5 hours. The dataisbeautiful and some employment subreddits have flow charts that show similar quests to get an offer, visualizing how much rejection and time is used inefficiently.

Like I said, not to invalidate anything, these experiences are so common amongst the whole pool that it has to be weighed accordingly.