How much networking is suffice?

Currently recruiting for 2023 IB SA and am curious on how much networking is enough in order to land an interview (assuming resume looks fine). I go to a target west coast school (think USC/Cal/Stanford/UCLA) and have networked with a handful of analysts/associates/some VPs across the bulge bracket banks and I am curious to hear on what the suffice amount is. For example, is having one strong networking call with someone who can pull some weight just as effective as having 10 average calls with some asking for resumes. I have heard that some people at these target schools can get interviews with no networking at all whereas other stress that you need to get like 5+ referrals in order to even have a shot. Everyone's experiences differ, but I am thinking back to some banks where I only networked with 2-3 (all strong calls) and am second guessing whether that is enough or not. 

Any advice or general thoughts would be great.

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From my own experience as someone who literally accepted an offer in NYC last week (and yes I actually went through and counted):

Since I started, 387+ new LinkedIn connections with networking being the reason for connecting

298 total cold emails, of those a few dozen calls were scheduled, total of 17 willing to act as referalls at their respective firms, applied to 54 total positions got 26 online assessment next steps, 5 actual first rounds, 4 superdays and one offer. Keep in mind I'm from a non-target with a 3.5 gpa, so not exactly a prime target. 

Hope this gives you some idea for a total networking process

 

wow 298 cold emails is a lot. I've had similar amount of phone calls but sent out less. I assume most of these cold emails were non alumni. From your experience, did you find that there were non alumni that offered to chat? Were they also from traditional non target schools?

 

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