It's even more self-reinforcing than that. There are lots of applicants, so companies don't take the time to communicate the status of the application, so it's

It's even more self-reinforcing than that. There are lots of applicants, so companies don't take the time to communicate the status of the application, so it's not viable for candidates to wait for communication before sending out another resume. If you're applying for jobs you can probably apply for 4-5 per day if you're taking the time to research each company and write individualized cover letters & customize the resume for each, more if you're not doing that much work. If it takes a company an average of a month to send any communication back, the candidate will have applied to over 100 positions before they hear back from the first one. I last applied for jobs several years ago, and there are still dozens of companies I've not gotten a rejection from. A "fire and forget" strategy of sending out hundreds or thousands of applications is the only thing that makes sense to do if you're not getting a job through networking.