LinkedIn networking/Converting networking to referrals and interviews

Looking for some advice on networking and transitioning those efforts into interview referrals and ideally job offers. Quick background. Graduated with my undergrad in finance last summer from a non-target school. Was involved with an investment management group and have been trading for a good amount of time with decent performance, so more financial experience there. I took a non-traditional path working my way through school, which unfortunately, without fully expounding, basically left me with a really bad institutional GPA. I'm focused on IB roles at the associate level, but also pursuing trading and HF analyst roles because of my trading background and obvious interest. Most networking messages I've sent haven't ended up yielding much of a result; should I be sending out a lot specifically in regards to positions I'm interested in or make those efforts more general? Also read a decent amount of people saying looking up firm email format and just blasting a bunch of those out is more effective than linkedin. For reference, I'm almost exclusively looking in NYC, but from Atlanta if that makes any difference. I've gotten a lot of differing advice so my question is how should I handle situations such as the following and how should I be handling networking overall.

1. Cold inmail message/connection resulting in accepted connection, but no answer to a message

2. Quick networking call resulting in advise, but no answer after following up

3. Differing advice on applications from firm recruiters/external people in the industry than from current employees with the firm

4. Agreeing to a call, has to reschedule, no response

I'm aware everyone in the industry is generally pretty busy so I get that and respect taking the time to talk, but I've heard of applicant experiences ranging from many networking calls/coffee chats transitioning into interviews and offers to months of applications and networking with no results. Wondering what's making the difference for the prior in the non-target school, 4.0, former BB/EB intern candidate group. Any other relevant advice is appreciated.