I wonder what would happen if you somehow managed to find what coffee shop the hiring manager was working from that day and sat down next to them striking up a conversation. Obviously most of the ways you could do that are super creepy if not illegal, but then so is most of what FB and crew make.

Your comment reminds me of an awkward story: I worked at a company once where we were having trouble with Apple's AppStore review. The app was delisted and we were losing money daily. It was so bad the CEO came in and led a meeting to brainstorm what to do--all wild suggestions welcome, and worker-bee me got to be a fly on the wall. One of the VP-level execs mentioned in this meeting that he happened to know some breakfast or coffee shop where Tim Cook can sometimes be found before work. Well, the CEO loved this, and for a brief moment, "Physically accost Tim Cook in Palo Alto" was one of the leading candidates to solve our AppStore problem.

What did you do instead? Apparently you came up with something even better

Amazingly, what worked was: Actually read and follow the AppStore guidelines, rather than complain about how unfair the review was.

Ok, interesting :-)

We have an employee on my team that got a job this way a few years back. She is still with us and does good work.

How long ago was this now?

16 years now. Not sure if it would be as effective today. I doubt it was truly effective even back then.

A past employer had a memorial page for its founder where one employee related a story of how he did this and ran into a man at the reception desk who accepted his resume and promised to pass it along but wouldn't give his name. He got the job and discovered that he managed to run into the founder at just the right time.