I promise you there are a ton of companies desperate to hire talent right now. It's hard on both sides of the market. Lots of noise, but there is demand for this supply. Unfortunately, that means personal connections are more valuable than they used to be, just to get the ball rolling.
Are you sure? Can you share some of those companies that are desperate to hire talent right now? I'd like serious teams as I need to find work. I do keep an eye on HN, Wellfound, Workatstartup, X, etc.
There are always a ton of companies looking for good talent. However there are not nearly as many as a couple year ago: there is more good talent looking for a job than there are jobs. This has happened before, it will happen again (this is easy for me to say - I still have a job, but I've been there before and I know first hand how bad it is when you need the job).
Good luck to those of you looking for a job. My company is hiring a few people, but if someone leaves today there is only a 20% change we hire someone outside to replace them so I can't really offer leads worth looking at.