The weird thing to me is that I don't see this happening at the large FAANG companies - referrals don't seem to move the needle whatsoever anymore, and not just for me but for quite a few of the people in my network.

On the flipside I'm not finding good resources to find startups to apply to that don't have hundreds of applicants already. There's no good answer the market has come up with as far as I can tell, so everything just gets worse for everyone as a result.