Competition / Bar for Entry & Job Market

I know there have been a few threads about the job market but I wanted to get a feel for how people have seen the quality of competition change.

Anecdotally (direct observation & close friends in the industry), the benchmark for breaking in is much higher. Democratisation of information has meant that the bare minimum of the Q&A is not enough. The standard for breaking in and the universities reflected in those cohorts compared to the same batches now. The comparative ease of switching lanes later compared to the inertia that sets in sooner (being typecast).

Going forth from IB to buy-side or elsewhere, seems as of the requirement is mostly plug and play (I think the job market part features more in this one).

Curious to hear thoughts on how the benchmark compares to 5,10 or 15 years ago. There is also the other side to this of the younger (social media?) generation being less tactile in terms of putting up with the trials and tribulations of the banking grind (I don’t think this itself is a bad thing). So perhaps there are more sides to it.