> It's not that companies aren't hiring junior developers, it's that they _only_ hire from their college recruiting pipeline for their entry level roles.

As someone who graduated shortly after the dot-com bubble burst, I'm extremely bitter about this behavior. I basically got screwed out of that pipeline by economic circumstance, then was far enough removed to no longer qualify for it once things recovered.

(And that pipeline isn't just the hiring of new grads, but also the system of internship and co-op opportunities that lead to such hiring.)