I’m a millennial, the last time this advice worked for me was in 2019. I applied to the job online and went and sat in their office for an hour and a half waiting to talk to the manager for the position I wanted.

Eventually we chatted for like 5 minutes, I told him my name, that I applied on line, and that I’m ready to start as soon as they’re ready to hire me.

I got the job. The next one was a bit less dramatic but still involved some extra bugging after applying online.

But all of this in a county of 30k people for a labor job that I was overqualified for. I think this would still give you a leg up in the right environment or job search. But I haven’t looked for a job in 4 years and my wife is a programmer and you can’t do this stuff for those jobs. We’re at least 50 applications deep at this point with no contact from companies.