Update: I tried the whole "informational interview" thing and I was wrong about it
I always figured cold emailing strangers for career chats was a waste of time, too awkward and fake. But after 3 rejections on job apps in April, I sent one to a project manager in Austin I found on LinkedIn. She spent 20 minutes telling me about how she switched from finance to tech, and it gave me a specific resume rewrite that got me two callbacks last week. Has anyone else had a random interview actually lead somewhere, or did I just get lucky?