>Do people, in general, believe that we can revert to whatever we were doing before the pandemic started?

Why not?

Based on the OP I have a somewhat similar background. Practice at interviewing never became a thing since responses were so far and few between. I was averaging around 100 applications per phone screen, and I think I ended up with maybe 3 interviews over the course of several months. It was a colossal waste of time.

Out of curiosity, how much were you changing what you were sending out to experiment?