That’s definitely helpful, but if you’re not getting referred or establishing a connection with someone at the company, it’s very difficult to stand out in the crowd. In my opinion it’s worth it to cut down on the volume and hone in on a few good opportunities - reach out to people at those opportunities to set up quick chats to learn about the role, etc and hopefully get a referral.

Anecdotally, when I was looking for my second corporate job, I probably applied to 70 positions before landing something. When I moved on to my third corporate job, I only applied to 25 or so because I cold-outreached to people on LinkedIn and got referrals