The answer to that depends entirely on the success rate.

Over 11 years in the workforce, my success rate with applying to ATS-like platforms on company websites is 0%. And even just getting a rejection is in the neighborhood of 5-10%.

So with those numbers do you still think 2.5 minutes is a lot of time? 2.5x500 applications is ~21 hours of applying to jobs.

With recruiters on LinkedIn, my success rate is roughly 80% to 1st interview, 60% to second and 20% to getting an offer.