[antonymoose]

A judicious email to the hiring manager? Sure, why not roll the dice.

We’ve had candidates spam our every Senior+ level staff at my current job (many not even in the relevant department) trying to get their resume boosted.

Those went from candidate to rejects very quickly.

[johnnyanmac]

Never spam a company, I agree. If you're going to "circumvent", pick one or two (and honestly, even 2 is pushing it) contacts you know the most and email them. And make sure they are at least related to the department you're going into unless it's an director/executive person (I'm not much more effective in getting someone a sales role as you would be going to the online portal). Anymore than that and you won't be seen any differently from a spam caller.

The goal is to personalize, not spray and pray all at one company.

[antonymoose]

If these candidates had some type of meaningful reach-out I would at least give them the time of day - but if you send me and 15 colleagues a generic, templates email in just comes off as lazy and a waste of our time. Considering our head of HR has to draft a memo on how to handle such candidates it truly morphed into a non-trivial situation for the firm.