They only want senior developers (and probably for the price of junior developers).

Especially larger companies are sometimes structurally unable to effectively hire people.

I've been involved in the hiring process of a large company (>100k people at the time). The process goes something like this. The team lead needs a Java dev, announces that to the department head. DH whips out the standard dev requirements, these include some technologies that the department doesn't use anymore, and some the department may would like to use in the future.

That shebang goes to HR. They fluff everything up, add some aspirational stuff, like AI, so they sound more interesting.

Obviously, nobody fits the bill, HR will throw out anyone who doesn't confuse them enough with lies or jargon.

And even if you do get through, internal politics might get you. We had a pretty good candidate once, who was highly competent and had experience in teaching and training junior devs. He interviewed with two teams. My team gave him good grades, but we suggested that the other teams, full of fresh graduates, might profit more from his teaching experience. That was turned into "they don't want him", even though we explicitly said, he's a good hire. He didn't get the job. Absolute shame.

Most companies structure layoffs so that they retain as many high skilled workers as possible. That means that in times like these the market is awash in underperforming candidates. Finding good hires can be even harder than normal.

I mean, a bog standard rejection email at least would be nice. Being entirely ghosted sucks, at least with a rejection I know not to keep thinking about that job.

As I said, this is my experience in Spain, not US.