It took me 5 years to “break in” where I currently live. And for the past 3 years I've had no problem getting job offers. There's a community of 35-55 year old folks in the industry I work here in who move around between the management and owner jobs. They trade favors and clout by hiring each others friends or family. It doesn't matter how skilled or efficient you are your ability to stay employed with what we do is 100% about being “in” and knowing all the drama and who likes to shit talk about who, who likes to play cards, or board games, or go biking, or music. Often they don't like each other but being “in” is enough lol. I've known since high school that al ot of the world works this way but figured it can't be how an ENTIRE industry operates 100% of the time in a city of over 100k people right? Wrong. A co-worker suggested that an old classmate who is very talented and a experienced apply and interview for an open position. Our boss passed on even giving an interview because her recommendations were all out of state and my coworker didn't think it was proper to stack the deck in her classmates favour. That all changed after my coworker decided to invite her friend to town and go to the pub with some coworkers. All of the sudden she was “on the map”.
I'm switching towns and It's very hard to get an interview even though remote interviewing is very common in this industry since 2020. I was worried that I didn't have enough experience or something or it was too competitive with a ton of very talented folks but nope. It's the same thing. a friend works in L.A. (where I want to go) and told me “oh you won't get an interview there unless someone introduces you socially to someone else. I just hope I don't get stuck here and can break in to a bigger city some how, maybe a place that isn't so drive by clout but honestly I doubt such a place exist for what I do.