Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

I think you might need to reframe how you are considering this job search. It sounds like you are thinking of a job interview as an exam, and whoever scores the highest gets the job. You should think about the interviews as the opportunity to show that you are the right person to get done whatever it is they need. Part of that is showing that you can do the work, part of that is showing that your values align with theirs, and part of that is confirming that you will not be a pain in the neck to work with. There is more to the interview than just showing you have the technical chops and a lot of the answers to these questions are binary, not linear. You don't need to score the highest just make sure you check all of the boxes.

Nobody wants to hire someone who isn't "competitive" and aspires to level up, advance, etc., unless it's for some short term contract.

They want people who can do today's job today, and have potential for more / leadership tomorrow. Even if you just want to coast on by and collect your paycheck... you need to (at least pretend to) be be interested in advancement.

If you want to skip the intervewing, you have to network and make sure people know you. The goal there is for someone to reach out to you that they want you.

Either find a niche framework/language and target those companies, or just bite the bullet and sign up for one of the more popular interview courses and get better at them.

Do you know anyone you’ve worked with in the past that can strongly vouch for you? Any past managers you’ve gotten along well with? Where are they now?

Position yourself in terms of value you offer to the Business.

Becoming a freelancer is a booster as it won't suck you into office games.

find an average/below average company with low expectations and don't be too picky about the salary

  'We are all but grist to the mill of Society'

Perhaps time to take a sabbatical, given financial ability, is travel a possibility?

What other types of different work prospects do you have, anything that you find interesting?

You skills; training and/or teaching?

Recharge, refresh and renewal.

A lot of companies don't "need" anyone because they are not subject to profit and loss anymore. This is the result of government policies of cheap money, government contracts and higher and higher barriers to enter the market.

If there was a need, even if there were a lot of candidates managers would prefer the first to be enough. But they don't have a need, government policies give them all the time in the world. So for managers it's worse to get the "wrong" candidate than a sufficient one. Managers also prefer multiple rounds, testing, etc, because they can avoid blame by showing they hired someone that passed all the tests. At the same time for managers it's better to get one superstar they can brag about than a person that can do the job, because there is no job subject to profit and loss in the first place.

This is how I explain the current situation, situation I find absurd. I may be wrong, but that's what I think. I don't know if it can help, I think your pain is fully justified and this is my attempt at easing it. It helped me a little, knowing I'm not the problem and nor is the person in front of me (at least not really)