The popular narrative is that there is a shortage of technology talent. This is false. All I have to do to get thousands of resumes is put an ad on Craigslist offering $175,000+ for a computer programmer. I can offer $60,000 and get no one. This is a very reasonable expectation (in that the more I'm willing to pay, the more folks are willing to work for me).

The effect of that, which isn't obvious, is that for "good jobs", the kind you would find that are interesting to you and you add real value too, aren't being chased by unemployed programmers they are being chased by every single programmer who thinks they aren't making enough money in their current job. That is where the thousands of resumes come from, people gainfully employed who are tired of not getting any raises for the last 2 to 5 years. They want more.

So when you apply to a company through the 'fire hose', your resume arrives with a zillion others. Chances are you are in a lottery you don't even know, and the 'scoring' system is something like "College, GPA, open source cred, buzzword matches, Etc." Worse the person doing the initial screening might be an English major[1] who is "good with people" and so they are working in HR and haven't a clue as to what makes one person more or less appropriate for an opening.

When you apply to a company by having someone who knows you and respects you talk to managers who are looking, you aren't in a lottery, your in a select short list of people. People where resume details mean less than the fact that you are considered to be "good" by the person who referred you.

So when you find a job that looks interesting, you contact someone you know at the company and let them know you are interested, then you are doing the contacting but you will get a much much higher response rate.

[1] Not trying to offend English majors here, one of my daughters is one, it's that if they end up in a tech company and aren't in marketing or the tech pubs group, they are most likely to be in HR.