‘Never’ is a long time. There were far worse times in (recent) history, but currently I see many companies rather hiring no one than a graduate/junior. At least in my field (which is common here; saas dev, fullstack), I have too pick between paying a graduate a very large amount of $, much to close to a medior or even senior, to skip over them. I would love to hire someone like me when I was a graduate: I didn’t have much costs so I worked for very little and was eager so I worked hard and tried to soak up everything. It seems these are different times and as a small company, I simply cannot take the risk for the salaries people are asking with zippo experience.