Job hunt in this market is insanely depressing

A little context: I graduated in Dec 2022 with a master's from an okayish institute. I'm an international student in the US. When I landed in the US back in August 2021, I was determined to learn new

A little context: I graduated in Dec 2022 with a master's from an okayish institute. I'm an international student in the US. When I landed in the US back in August 2021, I was determined to learn new things and put in as much effort as I could to get a summer internship. I started grinding LC and making personal full-stack dev projects to increase my chances. I believe the market was not this bad at the time. I applied to nearly 1200 relevant positions, got 40 OAs (cleared around 37 of them), got 3 calls from 3 different companies, (i) rejected from the first one in the final round (ii) rejected from the second in the first round (ii) rejected from the third one in the final round. Despite an insane amount of effort, I was not able to get an internship until May 2022. I talked to a senior friend who was graduating and asked him if he could refer me to the small tech company he interned at. He agreed and after completing OA and two interviews, I got the internship. I also got a Co-op from them through my Fall semester where I worked full time with them and also took 3 courses so that I could graduate. I have been working with the same company since then. A mix of vent and disappointment: My internship pay was around flat 2k a month after taxes and I thought I deserved more, so I started applying for new grad roles around August itself, but I believe this is the exact moment when the layoffs had started and no one was hiring. Still, I kept applying to positions but had no luck. Coming to February 2023, the company offered me a full-time opportunity with a TC of 65k and the role was fully remote, I had no option but to take it. I took a break from applying to jobs for around 6 months and then I started again probably a month ago. I have not received a single OA after 120ish applications, which were tech stack specific and I applied to jobs only where I thought I would be a great candidate. I have received straightup rejections and I am confused about what is going on. I understand that since I am an international student, the sponsorship thing fucks me up entirely, but with each rejection, I get without even an OA, my confidence chips off a little bit. Sometimes it causes insomnia because I start overthinking everything and end up questioning my life choices. I have even tried connecting with recruiters on Linkedin, and this has been the worst part. Out of around 20 recruiters to whom I sent a DM after analyzing what they hire for and how active they are on Linkedin, I have only received one response. I am sure they are overwhelmed at this time, but the number of responses I have got makes it more evident that I am not getting a new job in the near future. At this point, I am just baffled by what companies want from the candidates. I am also curious to understand the beginning and end of the whole recruiting process, this just doesn't make sense for some reason. A few questions: When a position gets listed on a company website, what happens behind the scenes when someone applies? I mean how is the shortlisting done? Is internal hiring prioritized over getting a candidate from the market? What do recruiters expect from the resumes of candidates in order to just allow them to interview? In case someone wants to have a look at my resume.