>> Also find it odd that 20 years of experience hasnt led to a bunch of connections that would assist in a job search - my meager network has been where I’ve found most of my work so far.
I had the same impression. Anyone reading this who is younger: at some point in your life your employment will probably mostly depend on the connections you make to your successful peers, the companies you start, or the products/ technologies you are associated with. When you are starting, strangers will hire you off of your resume. At some point this effectively stops and if people aren't familiar with you or your work they will not consider you. This has been true long before LLMs existed.
it really depends on how your career is developing. the last 10 years i worked for a single company. i made a few connections there. but except one they are all my junior and themselves don't have enough connections so that they could refer me. beyond that there may be a dozen more. i talked to almost all of them. nothing so far. they either work in small companies that are not hiring, or in big ones where they can't influence the hiring process. add to that that where i am from using connections to get a job is frowned upon, bordering on corruption. the one connection that did give me work was an acquaintance i made at a tech meetup about two years ago, who then connected me to someone interested in working with me. but even then it took almost a year before we started working. and it's only a part time gig, not enough to cover expenses. otherwise i did get 3 or 4 interviews out of more than 100 applications. not a single offer though.