Given how bad the job market was, how did the current senior and staff engineers started their career about 20 years ago? How could they stand out from the sea

Given how bad the job market was, how did the current senior and staff engineers started their career about 20 years ago? How could they stand out from the sea of applicants? Ditto. I got my undergrad after the dot-com crash and finished grad school before 2008. You've reminded me the bad old days. I was considering seriously to go back to my old profession established during my teenage years. I got lucky to get my first real adult job from my grad school's industrial partner, which paid with peanuts. At least I kept a great credit score. My undergrad education was paid partly by my old profession's gigs. Grad school was tuition-free with a stipend.