Can you clarify "focus your efforts?"

For example, I am a graduate software engineer. There are a lot of companies that I have a more than sincere interest in working for - I have a near obsession for working for, say, Google, Amazon, Dropbox, or Facebook. I also have a desire to pay my bills. All 4 of the above have rejected me for "lack of years of experience," and so now what? Find more companies I sincerely want to work for? At this point, a company with a software engineering team I can learn from fits the bill, of which there's probably 3,000 in the Bay Area alone. So, I don't understand how my options at this point are anything other than literally sending out 3,000 resumes (I'm at 80 now). Other than, of course, extensive networking, which I also do.

Are you honestly telling me you can't tell the difference between a candidate spraying out resumes and a candidate worth talking to without a cover letter?

Are you honestly sure that writing a cover letter is a good signal?

The standard advice is to submit a cover letter, so many standard candidates spraying applications do. There's someone just a few comments over who wrote 53 cover letters when applying to jobs.

You still think cover letters are about focus?

I absolutely agree with your last sentence though. Bypassing the initial resume screen by talking to an actual engineer makes far more sense, but frankly you don't want to be too aggressive about it because then random people will start pestering your engineers all the time just to be considered.

>There's someone a few comments over

That's me, we're in the comment chain for it right now. I don't understand what else I can do to get a job as someone a.) new to the city and b.) a graduate software engineer with no prior experience other than personal and group projects. None of my "passion about" companies will take me - dropbox rejected me in 30 minutes flat, probably automatically. What can I do but spray out absurd amount of resumes? What can I do but have an auto-generated cover letter that swaps out COMPANY_NAME and JOB_TITLE so I can crank out enough resumes a day to ensure I get a job before my bills swamp me?

A good applicant is someone who has the skills to do the job well. Full stop.

You can increase your chances of an interview marginally through a significant investment of time, but you'll get more interviews by spraying resumes. Especially good candidates with valuable skills.

Of course, but you can't tell a good candidate by just asking them. You have to pick up signs they are a good candidate. One of them is a good cover letter.

What positions do you have that a good cover letter is a strong positive signals indicating that the person will be good at the job? If it's a writing or communications position, I fully understand. If it's for software engineering, cover letters serve more to stroke corporate egos than they do to provide critical job skill information.