Personally, I've been cold e-mailing for the past three years as an undergrad and it hasn't gotten me anywhere despite what forums, career counselors, friends, and others say.
Can anyone give some concrete proof regarding cold e-mailing effectiveness? Any uplifting stories? Personal stats perhaps?
I would love something semi-empirical.
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Works. Your template or performance during follo up calls is poor. Numbers game though, maybe you'll convert 1/30 into interviews.
not sure how empirical this is but: I cold emailed an investment banker at a firm that i was interested in working at in an industry of interest (attached resume), he ended up getting back to me because he almost attended undergrad where I went (not many people know of this school)...we talked on the phone a few times about the industry / how he got started / opportunities at his firm....eventually he sent me about 10 different contacts in the industry. One of the contacts was a headhunter at a pretty reputable search firm...i reached out to all the contacts, introduced myself, said i had been in contact with XXX. 6 months later, headhunter set me up with an interview at a hedge fund, and i'm currently in final rounds with the HF
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/non-target-cold-e-mailing-to-mult…
I think people on this site too often confuse success in networking to mean "I got an interview from/through my contact." While I have received interviews from cold calls, I have to say that's not the only benefit of networking. Through my efforts, I've gained a lot of great information about the industry, who's who, and met some great people. Don't forget, as you progress in your career, all of these contacts you're making now will gain relevancy to your work.
If you go into informational interviews with this attitude of truly getting to know someone and not just job hunting, you will probably find more success all around - not to mention you will probably be more comfortable during your conversation.
tl;dr: networking is about a lot more than getting interviews. Keep at it.
you should always go into cold-emailing with ZERO expectations. it gets easier as you build a network and can say that you have previously worked with X at firm Z etc. that really boosted my stats from a 30% reply rate to a 80% reply rate.
one thing that I have noticed is that a lot of people fail to follow up after the first email.
you have to remember that a banker/sales person/structurer/trader gets so many emails that within about 5 minutes your email will not be on the first page (that goes especially for markets people). be sure to forward them the email 5 business days later with a note saying something along the lines of: just re-sending my e-mail from the other week. assuming it went under in your inbox. best regards etc etc.. this always works for me and usually I get a reply within an hour or two if not less. my friend used my approach and landed a week's worth of "work experience" and was subsequently offered a job. his boss told him that he couldnt really be bothered the first time he saw his e-mail but liked and respected the fact that he followed up.
always keep in mind that most probably you will never meet these people and you are not risking anything because quite frankly people have more important things to talk about than your cold-email... so be fearless and be successful. it has opened a lot of doors for me in the last three years.
if you havent picked up the basics then this guide is golden: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/cold-emailing-guide
feel free to send me a pm
This is awesome advice, cold emailing is a crapshoot, luck is such a huge part of it. You just have to keep going and hope for a break.
You must be doing something wrong. Email format/ conversation skills/follow ups/ GPA/ etc.
Cold e-mailing has been the best thing ever for me.
Landed me my first SA position at a MM IB for my freshman summer, and so far its gotten my resume "pushed" at 4 different top MM banks for next summer - none of those contacts who took my resume were alumni either.
I've made a ton of buyside contacts as well through random cold e-mails as well.
I don't really look at networking in terms of "I sent out X emails and got Y responses". I treat networking as I would a 5 hour class and try to spend 5 hours a week or more either looking for people to e-mail, following up on e-mails, having informational interviews or re connecting with old contacts.
Thanks @"StryfeDSP", very insightful. What is a good ratio of e-mails to responses? Also, how to you decide who to e-mail?
I'd say my current ratio is about 3:1. I'm pretty happy with my template and my results, so I consider that successful.
Since I go to a non-target my pool of alumni to e-mail dried up fairly quickly. Well, alumni who are in ER/Investment Management anyway. I haven't sent a single e-mail to any alumni in IB, but my friend here at school who works on networking/interview prep/WSO shenanigans with me wants to go into IB so he tackles those alumni.
Once I ran out of alumni I moved onto analysts who share a similar coverage universe to the sectors I covered during my last SA position. I got around a 75% response rate from these guys.
At the same time I started targeting cities that I'd like to work in other than NYC, so Boston and SF. All I do is set my LinkedIn people filters to something like "research analyst" "portfolio manager", etc and then check off the cities I'm interested in. I use the same method if I'm interested in a particular company, I just set a filter for the company name. Because these aren't alumni, I have the lowest response rate here, which is around 20-30%. To offset that a bit I sort of just "spray and pray" and send out boat loads of e-mails. I try to comb through their LinkedIn profiles a bit before I decide to e-mail, though. I'm not going to be e-mailing the guy with a Harvard undergrad and Wharton MBA just because I know I probably won't get a response (not saying that I haven't ever, just the response rate from those guys is around 5%). But my overall mentality towards who I e-mail is pretty simple - if it's a position that I would want, I'll e-mail him/her.
Something that I do sometimes, but not a lot, is e-mail guys who are affiliated in some way with a rival sports team to mine, but this is pretty dependent on A) how well you word your e-mail, B) the assumption that whoever your e-mailing gives a shit about sports, and C) your ability to talk about sports if they respond positively. For example, I grew up in St. Louis am and a pretty big Cardinals fan, which is pretty obvious given where I go to school. For most of October my response rate from people in Boston was between 0-5%. I sent out a fresh batch of e-mails this morning to some of those Bostonians both congratulating them on the WS win, and asking to let "bygones be bygones" and a chance to talk. I sent out 5 e-mails this morning at 8AM, it's 1230PM right now and I've gotten 3 responses. I've also done this for some college rivalries.
Lemme know if I can clarify anything.
I can't attest to the "success" part since I'm still looking for a job, but my response rate has actually been pretty good on cold e-mails. Funny enough, CRE posted a thread on multi-purpose networking and his template turned out to be really similar to what I independently found has worked for me.
"I'm a recent xyz grad trying to break into abc industry. Some sentence about a common bond, or just that I saw something interesting in their profile and thought I'd reach out. Sentence asking for a call or coffee to hear about their experiences and any advice they might have on how to break in."
It's casual, quick, and they know you're in the market, but it's not as aggressive as asking directly about employment opportunities which limits the conversation. Meet/talk, feel out the conversation, learn something new, get referrals to other firms or to other people within the firm. Eventually it starts to add credibility that you've been talking to other people and know the landscape.
I sent 19,000+ emails ... had 300+ meetings (think interviews) and brought in 10+ clients (think offers) ... one year in a sales role. You need to sell yourself more.
There aren't 19,000 bankers in the world.
There are probably close to 500+ that are active. Of which 150 do 3+ deals a year. If you factor in follow-up emails/and email exchanges you could have my stats and still have a job if you really devote yourself to getting an ibanking gig imo. Some people I've emailed one time ... others more than 5+. Even if they don't respond ... doesn't mean you can't email them again.
My target market is 1,000 firms for work. And out of those 19,000 emails there will be noise (think emailing boss and sending calendar invites ... so the number in reality is probably closer to 12,000 emails which works out to about 12 emails per targeted firm, factoring in various levels of an organization sheds some light on the stat).
19,000+ emails = salesperson forwarding someone else's work and saying "I can get you access to this person if you'd like to talk to him (cuz I don't know anything personally)"
lol
i am a complete nontarget and have got all three of my internships from cold emailing and cold calling. I have also had many interviews/informationals from cold emailing. It works. Just be sure to perfect your email and of course customize it to each firm/group/person you are reaching out to.
You're doing something wrong; I got two of my three IB/PE jobs from cold emailing
I can thank cold e-mailing for my current job.
I also can thank cold emailing and networking to landing my first job out of undergrad in IB coming from a non target school. It works.
Got both of my internships without submitting an application because of cold emails & informational interviews. And fairly confident I will get interviews at BBs (I'm a total non-target)
Dont cold email HR, always bankers themselves.
I got my first/only superday/job offer through it.
Well, let me put forth my template and you guys can tell me what you think. Please give me feedback!
Additionally, good points regarding following up. So I'm noticing that 98% won't respond. The 2% who do keep telling me they aren't hiring at the moment or are in headcount reduction mode. Any effective ways to get around this?
Looking forward to all the replies.
Dear Mr. ______________,
Please allow me to introduce myself, I am a student at __________ University studying Finance and completing my final year of studies. With that being said, I greatly desire to be involved with your work at ________ I would greatly appreciate it if you would kindly look at my resume (enclosed in the attachment above) and consider my candidacy regarding an analyst role with _________ I firmly believe that working at _________ would allow me to broaden my horizons and refine my skill set while continuously adding value to ____________
Please feel welcome to contact me at ______________ or directly on 1-_________ to schedule an interview. Greatly looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Is English your first language (serious question)? This is not a good template. Also, you should be looking to set up informational interviews, not just spamming your resume to everyone.
Edit: I will try to be helpful.
John,
My name is duffmt6 and I am currently a finance student at Non-Target U. I am reaching out because I am interested in investment banking and my cousin, [mutual connection], suggested I reach out to you for advice on breaking into the industry. If you have a few minutes on Monday or Tuesday of next week, I would love to treat you to coffee [set up a phone call] and learn a bit about your career path and how best to position myself for an internship next summer. If you have any availability, it would be greatly appreciated.
Regards, Duffmt6
I like your template except for the part for treating him to coffee. I feel like that makes the e-mail seem more transactional than personal, and being personal is incredibly important in a trying to send a successful cold e-mail
I had a lot of success cold emailing when breaking into ER. You need a hook though.
I've gotten every single one of my jobs (ranging from academic research to i-banking to marketing) from cold-emailing. It works.
Cold emailing has worked for me even though I'm in Asia where people are probably less receptive to this than in the US. I think that, like what previous posters mention, you shouldn't be going into networking just to get them to forward your resume so you can get interviews. I went into it thinking that I want to find out more about their experiences and I've been able to get good advice and made contacts for the long-term. Most of them are alumni though, which could be why they've been more receptive.
Cold emailed my way into two IB SA offers and did this to land interviews after that summer. Cold-emailing works, but you have to be committed and persistent in reaching out to people.
Cold Emailing Success Rate? (Originally Posted: 07/26/2011)
I'm currently doing credit risk consulting and looking to break into investment banking- specifically Lev Fin. I figure the only way I'm going to be able to do this is by networking like a champ, so I've been cold emailing pretty hard this past week trying to get some informational interviews to better position myself for FT recruiting in the fall.
However, I've been getting pretty limited responses, which I figure is normal (about 7 replies out of 35 emails), but I wanted to see what everyone else's experience was in this. I've got 3 in person interviews set up and 1 phone interview for tomorrow, but I would like to have at least 15 or 20 by the time summer ends. Does anyone have any advice for getting a better yield or is it nothing more than a numbers game?
Try looking up your contacts on linkedin. You'd be surprised, but sometimes you have a second connection with them (you both have a mutual friend). Much easier to set up an interview when you can reference a mutual friend.
Nothing more than a numbers game. 7 out of 35 isn't even bad depending on the size of the firms you're getting replies from lol. When I tried i had a success rate of about 16.163%
Its a hit or miss game, same position as you are. If you go to a non-target your alumni list will be smaller and hit rate will be less. Take what you can and make the best of it thats what I'm trying do.
I'll definitely look into linkedin to try and leverage having mutual friends to get that interview. And I'm pretty much strictly emailing bulge bracket- for Lev Fin it doesn't make sense to go boutique.
And this may or may not be random, but I am definitely seeing better response rates from guys at some banks over others. So far I've emailed guys from Citi, CS, GS, BAML, DB, and Barcap- probably about the same number of emails to each firm. So far I've had an absolutely fantastic response rate from Citi- as in I have 5 informational interviews already set up. Then I've gotten some responses from DB and Barcap- but no interviews yet. Finally, absolutely no responses from any of the guys at GS, CS, and BAML. My sample size is too small to say that this is a significant result, but I think this does show a difference either in the culture of the bank or a difference in the workload, as the guys are just too busy to meet someone they don't know.
Am I over analyzing this, yes. But stupid shit like this makes cold emailing a hell of a lot more tolerable.
Also, how many informational interviews should I aim for? I know there is no right answer to this, but I want to hear some opinions. Thanks for your answers so far guys.
Accidentally double posted, and I don't know how to delete the second...
Alumni always tend to respond at a greater rate than randoms. Find some seniors who have been through recruiting, they can probably refer you to someone. You could also talk to any professors that know you well. Ask family members, friends of family, your friends parents, your doctor, etc. You really never know where you can find a solid connection.
Theres no real number to aim for. Just keep doing it to make as many connections as you can. Give yourself the best shot to land an interview and eventually get a job. The more people you meet the better chance you will have.
Good luck man.
My response rate for emailing people at GS (including alumni) was 0. Had good success with BAML and MS though. Definitely look for alumni since it is a real long shot emailing a complete stranger (although I have had limited success with this)
Just finished my first informational interview and it went really well. I told the guy about my background and how I wasn't currently in a summer analyst position, and we both agreed that it was going to be hard to break in but not impossible. He gave me some pretty good advice and was generally very supportive of my cause.
Now he asked me for my resume and said he was going to forward it to HR. The guy is a VP, so he probably has some clout, but should I expect anything to come from him forwarding my resume to HR or is this a pretty standard thing?
And I've been emailing some alumni, but mainly just randoms. Oddly enough, I've had more success with randoms. Some alumni base haha. I go to a target too! But I'm going to keep at it, so we will see how it goes.
Randoms as in non alumni?
In my experience once you meet people they tend to be pretty helpful and usually ask for a resume. Its still a good sign that he said he will forward it, so be sure to follow up regularly. Keep impressing more and more people and you will get in. Also ask for a referral and say you want to learn more and get different insights from different people in the industry.
Just out of curiosity: you said you contacted a number of people of the same bank..so that means you also reached out to different groups, right? Because you said that you'd be primarily interested in LevFin, so I guess you didn't mail, say, 5 people from Citi's LevFin team?
Exactly, I tried to spread it out. I wanted to avoid a situation where two bankers are talking and they both realize that they got a cold email from the same person. I don't think that would've gone over well. It's tricky though, because at the same time you want to reach out to as many people as possible for obvious reasons. I'm also staggering emails, so if I do end up emailing multiple people in a group, they will get the email weeks apart.
Oh ok, well played I have to say..I think your success rate is pretty good tbh! And let us know if you eventually got something serious out of it..would be pretty interesting
Any luck with cold emailing? (Originally Posted: 11/29/2013)
I am graduating from a very non-target school and really need a "back door" entry into the industry.
I have been looking at boutique I banks, many of which have no careers page on their website and do not do formal recruiting.
Has anyone had any luck cold emailing anybody with a quick cover letter type message and an attached resume?
Thanks yall, as always I am open to any help/suggestions...
Yes, people have certainly had success that way. Very often, people just start with a cold email (no resume) and ask to speak to a person before diving into the 'I need a job' phase of networking. That being said, cold emails with resumes have certainly landed jobs before.
It definitely works if you just aim for an informational interview, then take it from there. That being said, you will have to hustle.
Yes. Landed two IB internships through cold-emailing and cold-calling. There are a lot threads that detail how one can go about the process.
dont ask for a job in the initial email, dont attach resume unless you graduate this december. search around for the linkedin threads on networking, sometimes call up the office if u can't get contact information of individuals. be persuasive to the front desk person, bullshit them if you have to.
have your story down. like DOWN COLD. i can't emphasize enough how important that 2 minutes is
Too add...if someone sends me an informational interview request and they don't sound like a psycho or weirdo...I'll always try to fit in a phone call at least. Most guys that aren't complete narcissists will try to as well, because they remember how much it sucked when they had to do it for their first break.
There's some respect too, because it takes at least a modicum of courage and confidence.
http://www.investopedia.com/
Great resource
It works regardless if your from a target or non target. Usually I see non targets being more receptive because of the lack of numbers from "non target university"
sent out emails this past monday. I had a call the very next day with an associate (who is also an alum) at a MM PE firm in connecticut. nothing came out of it but I'll definitely keep in touch, he respected the fact that I had enough brass to reach out in the first place. with these things you definitely have to approach things in the right way (humble as fuck) and reach out to the right people and things should start clicking.
I go to a non-target. For the last ~3 months I have been emailing/calling people to just get their background/ hear what they have done. Never attached a resume and never asked for anything more than advice on what I should be doing to get interviews. Numerous times people asked for my resume.
I will be going to meet with a people in 2 MM and 2 BB in the next few weeks concerning summer internships. None of the people I will meet are alumni.
So that, I would say, is a small success. I will tell you in February if it paid off. I had one alumni tell me that the only reason he got his first internship was because of a random phone call that started a relationship with a MD who was Jewish. He then flew out Christmas day to meet the guy at his office and he got an offer then and there.
hustler! been calling the past 3 months? good for you. It should work out, as long as you convert interviews.
just convert one of them and you're set, don't forget the actual interview prep from doing all this networking
this is very impressive, id be interested to know how it turns out, best of luck to you brotha!
point of interest....I have been continuing to contact IB professionals, interestingly enough one gent i contacted suggested I should attach my resume and wondered why I hadn't. I do think the humble approach without the resume at first is the way to go, just found this interesting.
An update on my situation, I have received about 2 positive/neutral responses per about 20 professionals contacted, good luck to all!
But what exactly do you guys tell the person on the other end in the initial stage? I've some trouble here: feel my initial mail is too weak.
"Hello, I am from a non-target school, but interested in breaking into your industry. It'd be great if you can give me some pointers and some advice"
Something like this? How can I improvise it?
I'd recommend reading up on posts by @"wolfy" as he had this cold emailing thing down to a science. From what I gather; its all about pitching your strengths in such a way that the benefit to the employer is obvious, all while still being approachable and down to earth. Also, I'd be more forward in your approach. Its pretty late in the game and now is not the time to pussyfoot around, but that's just me.
Thanks @"kruzon", I'll definitely check out his posts. On another note, do you think its appropriate time to mail US-based network right now amid holidays? Or should I better wait a bit and then contact?
(Also, I don't know till when you guys have holidays there. I am from Eastern Europe and here it works a bit differently)
No problem. I would wait until the new year. I myself am waiting until a few days after people get back, so I would shoot for the week after next.
@"kruzon". Thank you, it makes more sense. I'll send out messages probably after 5th then.
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