The bigger concern should be, does the new area have other opportunities in case a job doesn't work out. Outside of the more transient large cities, you have even states dominated by graduates of 2 or 3 schools.

I work in HR and hire actuarial talent for a global actuarial consulting firm. I won't say it isn't competitive, but I hire people who do exactly this (cold-apply). Sumit a strong resume and answer the application questions thoroughly (I can't tell you how many people forget to attach a resume, give vague/incomplete answers or apply for jobs at the wrong level for their experience) and this will improve your chances of having your resume chosen out of the pool. It's not all bots that read resumes. We have people reading them (no bots involved).

I'm OP of this thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1115774.page

I was cold applying to remote jobs and jobs in cities far away where I didn't have any obvious connections (although I naturally had personal reasons for selecting them). I think I count as midcareer, though? I've been out of school/working for ~10 years.

Every company I get interviews for to did fully remote interviews as a matter of course, if that's a concern.

Tl;dr of my thread is that I submitted 28 cold applications, got 5 interviews, and 3 offers. Timeline was roughly 3 months.

Especially if you’re early career. Am in a relatively high-demand profession; think accounting or actuary