Having been on the hiring end over the last few years, it’s not surprising. Other than there being a glut of applicants, there is also a HUGE variation in what people consider to be “experienced”. The signal to noise ratio is pretty bad when sifting through applicants, so I can certainly see how it’s hard for qualified people to make it through. Especially since there are a lot of people who oversell their capabilities and experience, so it’s even harder to distinguish an actually-experienced, actually-qualified applicant from a skilled bullshitter. It doesn’t help that the industry has totally destroyed the meaning of terms like “senior”, so it’s hard to even use someone’s past history to make an educated guess at their actual experience level. As a result, experienced and qualified people get lost in the sea of suboptimal applicants. At this point the best hires I’ve made over that last few years are ones that came via networking / trusted references.