[lostcolony]

I've had ~10 jobs in my career so far. 1 was via my network; the others were all just me searching.

But that said, networking makes it far easier. I've seen people be brought in even when an interview panel was meh, because they had worked with the hiring manager before (and to be fair they were fine, just bad at interviewing), as well as people bypass parts of the process due to their knowing people. And, certainly, people getting landing interview loops (and getting put in the front of the queue) all because of a referral/networking.

[toadi]

First 10 year of my career(am now close to my 25 years into my career). Yup searching and hustling. After that during good economic times I get pinged/called with job offers. During down turns the only jobs came through my own network.

[lostcolony]

During downturns the more sure opportunities are through my network, definitely. But I've still landed jobs during them just from searching (I've been lucky enough to avoid layoffs during downturns, so job changes have always been my own decision).

[jbm]

Out of curiousity, where do you live?

Even as a senior developer I used to get messages from Canadian recruiters asking me if I'd work for 18 dollars an hour. To this day I keep a screenshot to amuse me.

[lostcolony]

The US (SW and SE coasts mostly, though some of those jobs were for companies headquartered elsewhere), so yeah, can't speak outside of that.