@futurebird It was a cold application because I was desperate to get away from a former boss who was a bit of an asshole. After a bunch of auto-rejections all over the place, I saw a company I actually like who had a position open and it just happened to cross my LinkedIn feed (LinkedIn was never good, btw).
What really helped is the guy who was doing the hiring/vetting was really weird and disorganized (just like me). We hit it off instantly.
Up to that point, no prior connections.