Does gpa affect your propensity to reply to a cold email?

When you see a 3.6 gpa, does that instantly make you less likely to respond and set up a call? Have heard some other analysts say that they only respond if they think your resume is strong enough to make it to super. 

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Unless you have an exceptionally strong resume (directly relevant experience) and especially if you go to a good school, I wouldn't even bother attaching resume.  I'd just include that you're a rising junior, for example, at X University with experience in Y at B company.

 

Wait really? I've been told by everyone at my target's recruiting clubs to always attach resume.. Has that been bad advice?

 
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Wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s bad advice by any means, I’m just speaking from personal experience on what worked for me. I always thought attaching resume off a cold email makes it so transactional. It’s very telling that you’re asking for a referral when you do that rather than actually providing a clear picture of your background and qualifications. Most bankers probably won’t even bother opening and reading the resume unless you’ve impressed them in the intro call. Also, they might totally forget. I think the best practice is to just leave it out, impress them on the phone, and then (if it went well of course) attach the resume with the follow up/thank you email. I will say again, though, if your resume is impressive in terms of directly relevant experience or super high GPA or just something that would actually impress them and make you stand out of the hundreds of emails they get, then I would include it.

 

Agree with others here that while it’s an important factor  this is much more holistic vs a number and there are other factors being considered.  I am also not sure I would suggest just randomly blasting your resume out and would be thoughtful around approach starting with warm contacts / alum and working on campus recruiting teams. Have always found it a bit odd to send random emails to various people if there is a core / non-core recruiting team as suggests you may not have networked or not really understanding how recruiting works. 

 

Are saying that I should limit my outreach to just people who sit on my school's recruitment team?

 

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