Treating potential interviewer to dinner

Hi WallStreetOasis,

There's an opening in my dream company. I don't rate myself as a 98% percentile Harvard / GS candidate who can just walk into a job. Instead, I'm an 80% percentile top 10 US School with decent work experience and public exposure. I need to make up the 18%.

How do you feel cold emailing an employee in the company and say something along of the lines of "I'm interested in this job. How about we talk over dinner what makes the ideal candidate for this position? My treat."

Too contrive?

Thank you.
Willy

 

Way too forward. Ask for a coffee or beer (if you're 21). Say something like:

I've recently applied to your firm and was wondering if you might be open to discussing what your group looks for in a candidate and how I can prep for a potential interview. Would you be willing to connect?

 

Sounds good.

Base on your experience, how likely will doing this increase my chances of getting the job? I feel I have the necessary background so I'm not buying substance I don't have. My intent to is know what EXACTLY they are look for so I can spend two weeks prior to the interviews to prepare.

 
Best Response

Creepy.

Things I do in the evenings:

1 Usually work

2 If work allows, some gym time

3 If no work, go home to relax, to an event with my wife or out to a bar or dinner with friends

Having to go to dinner with some creepy guy who wants a job (or wants to slip me a mickey and have his way with me) doesn't feature high in my list of priorities for "things to do when not in the office".

Those who can, do. Those who can't, post threads about how to do it on WSO.
 

Lol. You know what ... dinner actually does some creepy. I'm laughing right now.

Would the coffee idea work? I know of a coffee place downstairs of the company's office. Also, initially, I thought of pursuing one of the associates. Maybe I would go with HR.

 

I appreciate the hustle, and this is not meant to poke fun, because it's hard getting a job.

the questions this year just keep getting better.

  1. should I help a mexican cartel millionaire launder money to get promoted?
  2. should I take HR out to dinner?
  3. should I tell Goldman I don't want a job during my internship?
  4. I've never seen a golf club before...but should I learn golf to break into IB?
  5. will the "leap second" cause a financial meltdown? what about the NYSE shutting down for 3 hours?
  6. should I take the series 7 before I get my driver's license?

AndyLouis start a top 10

OP, the best advice I can give you if you're ever unsure about situations like this is ask yourself how you would want someone to approach you. if you're a normal dude, you wouldn't want to be taken out to dinner by a stranger who wants something from you. imagine if you're in college and you're in something like the investment banking club or a fraternity, do you want prospective members taking up 2 hours of your time over dinner? or, would you rather have them meet you for a quick coffee/drink/phone chat? probably the latter.

people with jobs that you want are just normal people, and if you want to get to them, do it in a normal way, don't overanalyze it.

 

Thanks thebrofessor. Indeed, the more I think about the dinner idea, the more it sounds creepy, ineffective and simply stupid. I guess my vision of instantly clicking with the associate, spending hours talking about public markets over some nice steak is pure fantasy.

Just wondering. How does doing "3. should I tell Goldman I don't want a job during my internship?" increase the chances of getting a full time offer, assuming that is what 3. is trying to achieve.

 

At least I haven't been seeing as many "Can you please rank banks/groups into Tier 1, 2, 3 & 4 and break out each tier into a-z and include prestige and exit opps? Also if I don't get into GS TMT will my helicopter parents hate me/contact the group head to complain and will I just be a ditchdigger the rest of my life, or worse yet have to work at Credit Suisse capital markets?"

 

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