"Oh, hello there. Excuse me, I just woke up from my long slumber induced by talking to you. What was that again? Oh okay...yeah...Zzzzzzzzzzz...."
I know that the vast majority of you guys and gals out there are absolutely 100% attentive during informational interviews, phone chats, and other networking avenues with both junior and senior bankers. I also know that it can be a little tough to pay attention or get the conversation moving when you're talking to bankers, something I wouldn't necessarily expect, due to how often we laud ourselves for our superb social skills.
Now, the other day I met up with a partner at a boutique VC fund, and he had more of the "serial entrepreneur" background than the prototypical finance one. We hung out and talked about everything -- most things completely unrelated to VC -- for almost two hours and I can honestly say that I enjoyed talking to him. I didn't have to put my "networking" hat on and fire off 20 questions...in fact, I don't think I asked any of the questions that I came prepared with because our conversation flowed so naturally. At the end of the conversation, I straight up asked him for an internship and he was excited about the idea -- first time in my life where I didn't get the wavering "well, maybe, kind of but I don't know right now" response.
Obviously, there are a lot of confounding variables here. We did have a ton in common, so we had a lot to talk about, and thus the conversation was interesting. Maybe I just haven't run across someone in banking that I really had a whole bunch in common with, and when I do, I'll have a similarly extremely positive experience. This is also not to say that my experiences with bankers have all been negative (or at the least, not necessarily positive): in fact, I've had many great conversations with bankers, but the majority have been pretty boring and involved me firing off 20 questions to keep the conversation moving in at least some direction.
And when it comes to VC, maybe it's because the guys who wind up in VC are somehow naturally more outgoing or less conservative because they're often dealing with young people who come up with off the wall idea.
Thanks for reading.
I think that when talking with more junior people, they have more to fear from you competition wise than say a managing director or someone of the sort. That competition has a lot to do with it in my opinion, and really does help guide the conversation. Personally, I have a lot of friends who are bankers and they are a mixed bag. Some are insanely social, but only if they know you well. Some are party animals and socially all over the place. Overall, I think they are less social than say a trader because of the nature of their work and the daily things they do. Maybe they are less connected with things or maybe it takes a more introverted person to deal with the mundane nature that banking can have early on. I'm only going off of a small sample size. Sometimes, especially with brighter people, they can be socially awkward because of that fact.
I don't think analysts are ever afraid of competition from college kids that are trying to network. Why would they be worried about competition? They already have a job; the networker doesn't.
I love that college kids think that they will come in on day one and be a rock star. It just doesn't work that way. The last thing on an analyst's mind is that you might be somehow better at their job than they are. By the way, at a BB, unless you are a lateral hire, you aren't even competing against them for group ranking/buckets/comp. You are only judged against analysts in your own class.
Additionally, I never found there to be much competition amongst analysts in IB. The reality is that you want the best, most competent people next to you so you don't have to ever end up taking over their work/fixing their mistakes. You also want to be able to rely on them to provide answers or guidance...it tends to be a much more collaborative environment than is being portrayed in this thread.
Totally agree, I couldn't believe he actually had that thought. Kids in college have no idea how long it takes to get up to speed and even then at the Analyst level you aren't effecting change, and your input into processes is minimal. Sure, knowing and having a rationale behind your assumptions for all the work you do is what you strive for, but having a great attitude and an ability to roll with the punches is far more important in the long run.
The culture is incredibly collaborative. To further illustrate that, when you're getting shit on by everyone above you, the last thing you want to deal with is some wise ass who thinks he's God's gift to the bullpen in the cube next to you. You literally live with these people, often 60% of your entire week and 75-85% of your waking hours. There isn't much competition at the analyst level. It's more about striving to improve and helping out those around you. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses but as TB mentioned, the last thing I want to do is have to redo / edit work that another Analyst did because it is wrong. I would rather every single guy / girl I work with produce flawless work, because then I get to sleep more and for the $2500 after tax difference in bonus between Middle and Top Bucket, I could not give one single fuck...
Lol... yes, we have ton to fear from a competition perspective, that must be it
Yeah I read that addicted to networking thread and I'm like wtf? Networking AFTER you're "set" in a FT job could be fun b/c there's not the 800lb gorilla of you needing a job, and also networking is not so forced. And it's usually done socially, not in-office or in a coffee shop near their office. But all this reaching out to bankers to "force the issue" on networking so you can break in? No, that's not fun. How can someone truly, truly love doing that? You'd have to be messed up psychologically. Plus, there's only so much you can learn about banking from these BS phone calls and meetings. In fact, WSO and M&I will teach you 10x more about banking and breaking into the biz than bankers will.
That feeling after networking depends on the contact. What I'm saying is it's never fun to have the same BS conversation with new bankers, not people you feel like you know well.
But yeah I have enjoyed the few truly strong connections I've made out of this stupid process, but IMO most of this stuff is unfortunately just BS you have to go through to get a gig IMO, but after you land a real FT gig, then networking becomes more like natural socializing.
What you're referring to as networking isn't really networking. Monty is going to give a kick ass speech about networking at the WSO conference. I suggest people take notes.
After reading your post I have to point out that first of all, the conversation could just as easily be stalling because you are not as good at carrying a conversation as you think. You said that you fire off questions from a list when there is a lull in the conversation? This is not a very effective way to hold an interesting conversation so I don't necessarily blame them for being semi-disengaged. It's your job to be engaging them in the conversation since you reached out to start the conversation.
To draw a parallel from your frustrations in networking efforts to dating, many guys are often called boring by girls that they think are unintelligent and likely couldn't hold an intellectual conversation if they needed to, but still the fact remains that they ARE bored, and they will LEAVE. Similarly, if you are talking to a junior person at a bank like an Associate or an Analyst and you are boring them, unless they just suck as a person, you should be able to find common ground in about 30 seconds. If you aren't able to have a great conversation with anyone who is not overtly trying to torpedo things, the fault lies with your approach.
Networking is addicting, because when it is done properly it isn't a contrived, uncomfortable exercise. It's merely you being you talking to someone else being them. The difference in comfort levels is bridged through your efforts to seek rapport. It shouldn't take you much time to establish a connection with a complete stranger if you are an interesting person. The reality is that it comes down to attitude and how you react to other people. The best way to build rapport with someone else... get down to what they are passionate about as soon as possible. It's a fairly simple concept but a lot of people just never view things this way so it is often hard for them to hold effective conversations and build meaningful relationships. You may use excuses like "He is an MD, we have nothing in common" or "He's a first year analyst getting killed working 100 hour weeks and is in a bad mood" so there is no hope for a fruitful convo but that's just bs.
The best way to build trust and comfort with another person is to allow them to share with you and for you to embrace their responses with positivity and enthusiasm. People avoid vulnerability for fear of the backlash, not because they don't want to share. Think about that.
As cheesy as it sounds, the best way to have great friends is to be a good friend. Similarly, the best way to have interesting conversations is to be interesting, to have meaningful conversations is to be empathetic.
Do this and you'll see drastic results in your conversations.
It's really not contradictory. The process of getting ahead through networking, getting a leg-up on the competition, etc. is pretty rewarding and feels good when it works. That is irrespective of the fact that the majority of conversations you have are pretty dull, forced, boring, whatever you want to label them. Having a great conversation, compounded with building a strong contact, if the best possible outcome, but you can build a strong contact without taking part in some sweet discourse with the other person I think.
OP -- I've definitely had similar experience. In particular, I've found that the most useful people for actual insight into recruiting and being an analyst, are recent former analysts who have moved to the buyside. Actual analysts are too burned out, cynical, and pretentious to be of much aid -- unless you actually know them, as opposed to having just cold-contacted them.
I was talking to this asian first-year analyst and asked him what his interests were. His response, "Well, we don't have much free time in ibanking...". So I asked him what he did in school, he said the same thing how he spent most of it studying.
Must be a great guy to work with.
tl;dr
Alright guys - just to give you the other side of the story and sort of represent all of the junior analysts reading this, it isn't fair to generalize that the junior guys in banking are boring/have large egos etc. There's several times when you'll catch them at a bad time, but because this is the third time you've reached out to them, they respect your effort and make time to entertain your questions.
There's a lot of things to be miserable out in the analyst stint - lack of sleep, being overstaffed and on call 24/7, getting stuck doing work for notoriously insensitive MDs/Ds/Associates/[insert position here] because you're at the bottom of the shit pile and can't hand that work over to someone else, and several more. Add to all that, the relatively little to negligible job security (unless you were stuck under a rock yesterday, you would've read about the 30 cuts at UBS). Imagine working 25 hours a day, with little job security, relatively little to no respect for your time or life from senior bankers and working in a group where everybody's interviewing to leave the place because they can't take it. Sure most people, and admittedly myself believe that it's a fantastic training ground, but that is AFTER we've finished the stint. Not during it, naa-ahh
Despite all that, I know enough kids in banking who tough it out and do a great job, and are also a great resource to people who approach them. When you're at a BB and have your profile up on linkedin, you get hounded by tons of rubbish email, networking requests, internship requests and what not. Unfortunately in a crappy environment like this, you have to be selective as an analyst and refer people who you think seriously have potential and are hopefully from your school to increase representation and make you look good. When you know you've filled that quota and have multiple deals going on in the background, there is a small opportunity cost (from the analyst perspective) associated with spending hours being social with someone who you know doesn't stand a chance in your books.
I'm not defending the examples you guys have mentioned above, but please be careful about when you reach out to people and arrange your informational interviews. Respect their time, and if you're generally social, I think it will work out just as well.
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