Could there be another approach that could overtake its effectiveness in the future? One idea I had is where instead of you choosing the job(s), you pick the criteria you want the job to include, and submit your job experience, and it'll build a list of job openings around that. These results could be optimized according to the a higher likelihood of getting interviewed. Because even when you cold apply, you could still benefit from preventing as many automatic rejections as possible.
I don't know if that is already being done somewhere but I'd be interested in reading about approaches on how it could be implemented.
I think we will see 3 major trends in the future.
1. Active Recruiting / Headhunting will become even more relevant and probably more obnoxious in the short term. This will extend to all roles across the board. Even now, there are on campus recruiting events to fill junior roles.
2. Curated job/people matching platforms. This is something I have just seen recently where they offered companies to become part of the pool to post job ads and candidates also had to submit their CV/portfolio which was then checked before it was put in a pool as well. I think this could be a way of finding people for very high-skill positions in a clearly defined niche.
3. Companies realize that they cannot fuck around with their job ads. 99% of job ads are horrible. "Java/Javascript", "C/C++/C#" and so on. Is it a remote job or is it "remote" where you have to be in the office twice a week? Companies love to complain about the lack of applicants but they do everything to get as few as possible. This goes hand in hand with employer branding. Sure, some people might not care, but especially people younger than 30 very much do.