Plus, finding opening where you are a good fit takes work, especially if you are a new grad.
I truly can not stand how shitty and annoying it is to fill these out. There are some circumstances where I understand it regarding security clearance/background checks but even then there are absurd cases of duplication. Admittedly I’m in a somewhat unique position of having lived in something like 10 places in the last 7 years so it’s especially bad but multiple government agencies I’ve applied with have required information that I’ve already sent at a different phase of hiring repeated again, and the USPS Postal Police background check site which is very similar to SF-86 is possibly the most user-hostile site to fill forms for.
I could easily apply to 20 jobs, assuming they existed, via indeed in half an hour. But once a company requires you to go to their own site it can take half an hour to an hour to complete the process.