I think you make a good point and I would further add that part of what this is getting into is that advice for jobs under capitalism has to be somewhat bullshit because capitalism is not actually built to employ everyone who wants/needs a job. It instead has artificial scarcity and a reserve labor force (I believe is the term?), which pits the working class against each other and toward scrabbling for survival.

As to the specifics of what works best, my perception of it from observation would be that it goes something like this, with the top being the strongest toward getting you a job and bottom being the weakest:

• High level connections (e.g. nepotism type stuff where the connection is so powerful it overrides other priorities of an institution)
• Average connections and proven skill (like from job history)
• Average connections without proven skill
• Skill without connections (on occasion, this one may win out if it's a really specialized field with few people who have the technical skill, e.g. where demand is so high and the quality of the work so important that they'll take most anyone as long as they can do the work)

Not "coming with" connections, such as from family or friends of family, and not being skilled at confidently reaching out to others and maintaining social ties (even if transactional ones), is probably one of the worst positions you can be in for employment under capitalism. There are other factors that can make it even worse like belonging to a marginalized group, but either way, capitalism is not in the business of humane policy surrounding work and labor, so the best you'll see under it is reforms and welfare stuff.