Does anybody else cringe at themselves seeing their list of un-replied emails?

Trying to enter from the backdoor (i.e. networking) has a massive price, man. When I look at my massive list of emails that no one replied to I feel a mixture of self-hate, awkwardness and pure cringe. I picture the look of disgust on the recipient's face when they see my email. I know I shouldn't tie my self worth to recruiting and whatever. This is an incredible hit to self-esteem to be frank. Going through this for almost 2 years is torture.

Anyone else feels the same?

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As a recipient who usually replies but doesn't always get to every last one... it's not disgust at all. Your email is like one of 20 they have gotten in the week, especially this late in the networking season. It's not you and you really can't take it personally.

Try to focus on people you have any connection with - alums obviously, but also schools in the same state, athletic conference, people from the same hometown or nearby (search by high school, why not) - any reason you can give someone to have some tie to you will help your response rate

 

Be my guest dude but seriously from my interactions with people, those who do reply often tend to actually reply to most or everyone who approaches them (guaranteed there's something in common, alumni e.g.). Networking isn't a competition 

 

I remember feeling the exact same way and it really sucks – definitely sympathize with ya.

Just know that it's not personal whatsoever or any knock on you. Whenever I get busy, I can assure you that answering networking emails are the last thing I think about. If you email me on a bad day, chances are it's immediately deleted, and I'll never think about it again.

Not that we don't realize how we ourselves got here or don't want to give back – it's just that I'm much more scared of my VP than a college sophomore

Realize that networking is the only way into this job so it's shitty to ghost people (and feels shitty to get ghosted), but just trying to get another 15 min of sleep here on some weeks

 

Being on the other side now, and having felt the same way in the past, you should realize that 99% of the time I will forget your name the moment I see it flash across the screen.

Chances are I’m thinking about the following:

- what I’m going to order for dinner

- what work I’m waiting for

- what my associate is chasing me for

- the 6 other tasks that could ruin my weekend

- PE recruiting

The very last thing I’m thinking about is your networking email. Most of it is luck on what the banker is working on when your email comes through. We all want to talk to students, but it is hard to plan.

 

It's a numbers game. Write it, send it, and forget it. At first, you'll take the non-responses as something personal, but after a while, you'll stop caring. When I was recruiting, my first 20-50 emails felt like massive hits on my self-esteem, but after that, it felt more like "I need to get it off my shoulders". The goal was to send emails without expecting anything back and the success rate was measured based on emails sent instead of responses received.

In my case, when I look at my first emails from 2-3 years ago I'm proud of the grind that my younger self put in, so there's nothing to cringe about.

incentives trumph ethics
 

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