Most of us have been there. We send hundreds of emails or messages in the hope of gaining an opening to a future opportunity, optimistic and full of belief that at least 1 out of the 100, will reply with some positive news.....
..... and then as days and weeks past, we get a couple of replies which aren't what we was looking for and then we start to make excuses (the denial stage), 'maybe they will contact me when they need someone', 'maybe they are busy', 'perhaps they liked my CV but it's just bad timing', 'maybe I'm over-qualified'.
Once we get past the denial stage, we start to realise that sending out over 100 messages was a waste of time, and if it didn't waste too much of your time... that's the problem!
It's natural to think that in situations where we only need one positive reply to set us on our glorious path, our main focus should be on quantity - the numbers game. 'Surely if we contact 100 people about a job, at least one person will respond with something positive'?
Maybe they will (depending on how you go about it), but most likely they won't.
Too many people are still lazy when going about their networking quest, of making meaningful connections and building relationships. They will; copy and paste generic messages, send a CV only without any explanation what it's for, fail to address the contact correctly and forget to mention anything specific to the person or their organisation altogether.
My past experiences in seeking employment and contacting people and organisations, taught me a valuable lesson in making meaningful connections
It's about the quality of the connection and not the quantity.
Even having a reasonable level of skill at CV writing and approaching people showing value and respect, I once spent (wasted) a lot of time contacting around 120 people from a country, seeking information about available roles in that country. I was feeling confident that the sheer quantity of my approaches would get me a few positive replies, at least. I sat back and waited.... and waited.....