You could probably message 3 random engineers at random companies and invite them to coffee and it'd be a better return on time invested for your career than wr

You could probably message 3 random engineers at random companies and invite them to coffee and it'd be a better return on time invested for your career than writing cover letters. I'm not sure why you'd want to read 500 cover letters as opposed to reviewing 500 CVs. And why on earth did you keep the job posting open to accumulate 2000+ applicants? Legal reasons?