Extra info: Columbia rising sophomore with limited finance/club/internship experience looking to pursue BB/EB/MM to eventually pivot to HF. Also looking at Equity Research though I'm lost on the recruiting timeline for that
How many banks do most people apply to, and how many should you actually be trying to network at instead of throwing a shot in the dark?
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As many as it takes
amen
50
Most people: 50+
MD’s son: 1
apply broadly, applications are cheap. twenty minutes each and you can't predict which group has a headcount gap in January.
networking is the constrained resource so that's where the number actually matters. pick 10-15 banks you'd genuinely take and work those properly, a few real conversations at each. one cold email to sixty firms does nothing. coming from Columbia you have alumni at every one of them, which is the entire advantage, so build the list off that instead of off a rankings post.
then track who writes back. after a month you'll know which banks are warm and which have never responded, and you move your time to the warm ones. quiet doesn't mean no this early, but a bank where someone actually replies is worth ten where nobody does.
for the HF thing later, none of this changes. get the banking seat first.
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