was it ever not that? i got 100% of all jobs i ever had like that

I’m similar. I’ve been working for almost 15 years, and got all but one of my jobs through connections. I think I’m now so out of touch with the hiring game that I’d fail spectacularly if I ever had to do it again. I don’t even know what a cover letter is. Do you attach it as a PDF to your email? Why don’t you just write that stuff in the actual email?

I’ve hired over 50 people and they were all new to me. The big qualifying question was “What have you launched recently?”