Yeah, it does not work absolutely. As you say, sometimes the incompetent people and companies disappear from the market; and sometimes for various reason the competent ones are looking for something new.
Yet, I would say that in my personal experience there seems to be a correlation: the bad jobs I had were often those where I responded to a printed job announcement (even if I responded to multiple postings and chose the job that seemed relatively best among them), and the good jobs I had were often those where people I knew actively approached me saying “hey, I have a great job, and we are currently looking for someone just like you”. (Or in one case, it was me calling my friends and asking: “hey, where are you working currently? is it an okay place? are you hiring?”.) From the opposite perspective, I have interview a few job candidates whose CVs seemed impressive, but their actual skills were somewhere around the Hello-World level. So it seems to me that responding to job announcements is indeed a lemon market for both sides.
Yeah, it does not work absolutely. As you say, sometimes the incompetent people and companies disappear from the market; and sometimes for various reason the competent ones are looking for something new.
Yet, I would say that in my personal experience there seems to be a correlation: the bad jobs I had were often those where I responded to a printed job announcement (even if I responded to multiple postings and chose the job that seemed relatively best among them), and the good jobs I had were often those where people I knew actively approached me saying “hey, I have a great job, and we are currently looking for someone just like you”. (Or in one case, it was me calling my friends and asking: “hey, where are you working currently? is it an okay place? are you hiring?”.) From the opposite perspective, I have interview a few job candidates whose CVs seemed impressive, but their actual skills were somewhere around the Hello-World level. So it seems to me that responding to job announcements is indeed a lemon market for both sides.