My parents have a lot of funny stories about singles shabbatonim they went on way back when…
Do they even have those anymore?
(Then my parents met al yedei my aunt talking to my moms neighbor at a Kiddush, with one saying, “do you have anyone for my brother?” and the other saying “oh what about this nice girl from my neighborhood?” and the rest is history.)
The point is, there are methods beyond professional shadchanim- my mom, for instance, is a semi-professional (I have no idea how to describe it) shadchan, in that she has a database of guys and girls and runs shidduch meetings but she does NOT interview people or tell them that they have no chance of getting married unless they fit the BJJ/BMG cookie cutter. Her credo is that networking is the best- that’s how she got married. Sometimes you can’t really tell the unique things about people on paper (I remember looking through her [initial only] spread sheet for someone and I couldn’t find her- the people all looked the same) and if you have people who really love and respect and are enthusiastic about a person you can really get more of an understanding of what they’re like.
The whole way we do shidduchim has become really sterile- I hope by the time I enter that parsha it’s a lot better :).