A bit of background: I come from a non target but a great school nonetheless, think top 40 in US. I had a S&T internship at a European BB my sophomore summer and an internship this summer at a boutique bank focused on TMT mostly. Coming from a non-target liberal arts school, our alumni network is not very expansive within the investment banking industry, and I am struggling to gain traction at the firms I'd like to work at. My main question is that is there a real point in cold-emailing MDs at top places to try and expand the network out a bit, or do they receive so many as it is that receiving one from someone with a background like me won't really entice them to respond.
I am 100% certain this is what I want to do after graduation and have learned the ins and outs of the industry to the best of my ability over the past 2 years. My resume is fairly strong as far as GPA, extracurriculars, and experience/volunteering goes but I am struggling to make that first connection that can get me an interview or a foot in the door.
Any input or assistance would be much appreciated!
What do you have to lose by cold emailing people you don't currently have a relationship with?
Similar boat as you, go to a top liberal arts, sort-of target school with not quite as many alumni connections as some of the other bigger schools. The success rate definitely isnt that high, but I've heard back from some people and gotten phone calls/coffees and made some decent connections. Yeah, most of the time you wont hear back, but who cares? Try hitting up people who were similar majors to you from other liberal arts schools. Good luck.
Does your location have any CFA societies, ACG, or 'Young professional' groups? That would be a solid place to start and would yield better results then cold emailing - but if you got nothing other than emailing do that. Nutin' to lose but time.
Would definitely recommend looking up templates on here and trying them out. I know this is captain obvious but it helps to know the industry well. which I know you already do.
Not a bad idea, but look for ways to differentiate your email. Put yourself in the MDs shoes... what type of problems do they have? How can you solve them? They might simply be looking for trusted hard workers and it doesn't matter where you come from.
Final tip: show, don't tell. It's more powerful if you have proof rather than just saying "I'm really smart and work really hard."
Good luck
wtf even if your yield is 1%, you send out 500 emails and that's 5 calls with MDs versus 0. What are your other options to build a network?
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