No matter who it is - age, gender, friend, cold connection and no matter what platform - email, phone call, coffee, it seems that every banker is stone cold when it comes to composure and conversation. They don’t seem to care much for formalities around emailing such as exclamation points or anything personal. In person, they are all very quick to transition around a conversation - almost like they’re following a strict outline with x amount of minutes assigned to each topic. Is this just the nature of the game? Even the 22 year old analysts all seem to follow the same flow.
Please don’t be an ass, this is an honest question about the culture of IB.
It depends on the person. Not to lie, Finance isn't the industry where you find people who want to be to your friends. The truth is realistically, they want to read your resume and know your connections. If you don't fill the requirements, people have no desire to talk to you.
not true. I’m from a non target and built connections with many people from other schools at prestigious firms. I’ve had 120+ calls/coffee chats and unique questions get the banker to show some emotion.
I’ve talked to bankers from a variety of banks (small regional, elite boutique, and BB) and I would say my experience would be the opposite of that. Of course there’s always going to be a few bankers who are tired and not wanting to talk/network. Not sure what topics you stick to when talking but most bankers get pretty tired of answering the same questions over and over. Try to throw in some unique questions and see if you can touch on their interests
This is just a function of the hours, stress, amount of work and desire to be efficient / get out of the office ASAP that everyone has. I used to be exactly the way you think people should be like: exclamation points and all. One thing I noticed was that I became "like a banker" because I conformed to how everyone else around me was communicating both in written and oral communication / behavior. I mean when you are with these people for 80-100 hours, some of that attitude will brush off on you too, right?
Not me
Imagine working a 100 hour week and someone that you don’t know or care about cold messages you and asked for an hour long coffee chat. would you be ecstatic?
well let me clarify - they were always nice and literally 9/10 people referred me to someone and got me interview. just saying that it’s hard to read them
ask yourself this: if you just came off another fucking 80 hour week of ib how would you feel waking up in the morning.
Should they use emojis?
I say this as a finance guy — people who work in this industry are often the most boring people alive. But I think the same is true for any industry at the intersection of high achievers + rigidly defined career path (lawyers, etc) — it’s a risk averse crowd that’s often just different shades of gray
true for risk averse
They get so many networking calls from aspiring bankers and they themselves are working absurdly long hours. You're surprised that they aren't excited to know more about a prospective IB analyst? You're the most expendable thing on earth.
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