Tech Companies Want Everything But Still Go With Other Candidates

You've got strong projects? Cool, but they need DSA (because apparently building real things doesn't count). You've solved 1000+ LeetCode problems? Nice, but where's your "experience"? You've done internships? Great, but they need open source contributions. Oh wait, you have open source contributions AND literally everything they asked for? Perfect! Time to move forward with someone else because... reasons.

The modern tech hiring process is basically a game of "let's keep moving the goalposts until we find an excuse to reject you." Companies want a unicorn who's simultaneously a fresh grad with 10 years of experience, contributes to open source in their free time, grinds LeetCode daily, has shipped production apps, AND will accept entry-level pay. Spoiler alert: that person doesn't exist, so they'll just keep the position open for another 6 months while complaining about the "talent shortage."