How come I keep reading these types of posts, hearing these stories, yet I've never experienced anything remotely close to this? Job hunting has always been the

How come I keep reading these types of posts, hearing these stories, yet I've never experienced anything remotely close to this? Job hunting has always been the opposite for me; being inundated by sharks trying to aggressively recruit me. --- For reference; here's a quick summary of my job history: Mid 20s, I was working for a retail bank in Iceland (where I'm from), doing ASP.NET and C#. With about 4 years of experience, I decided I was a "big fish in a small pond" and that I needed a greater challenge. I was interested in finance and wanted to move to London and do quant trading or HFT, so one night I applied for about 5-6 different jobs posted on Indeed.co.uk. At 7AM the next morning the phone started ringing. 3 days later I was in London, doing five interviews a day for 4 days straight, and long story short, ended up doing about a 15-20 interviews and ending the week with a dozen offers. Since then, I've done the occasional round of interviews, just to determine whether I'm "optimally employed", and they've never been an issue to set up. Basically just message a couple of reliable recruiters on LinkedIn, tell them "hey I'm interested, and I'm looking for X" and they come back with job specs on a silver platter. I've NEVER not got an interview somewhere I wanted to work. Literally never. I've been rejected a handful of times, most of which I'd chalk up to the interviewers or the hiring process being terrible. I've rejected or cut short A LOT of hiring processes, though, I have some insane stories to tell regarding that. Now, I work almost entirely by referral. I didn't even interview for my current role or send them a CV, because I'm working for and with people who know me. And I have a feeling that's how it'll stay from now on. --- So, now that I got that out of the way - why the F00k is my experience so askew with these horror stories? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put anyone down, or brag, or say they're doing it wrong or something, I'm simply asking; what causes the difference in experiences? Is it the fact that London finance runs on recruiters? Is that not a thing elsewhere? The last time I submitted an application directly to a company was in 2009. Since then, I've always had recruiters do it on my behalf.