Is it a bad idea to target one location exclusively?

I want to end up in the bay area and have basically no interest in going to another location. My worry is that this is not wide enough of a net, I'd rather go to New York or LA and then lateral over to SF at some point than never break in at all. However, I am worried that devoting a lot of time to locations I do not want to go to might not be worthwhile, would be interesting in hearing what others think.

Has anyone exclusively focused on an area before? Is this a terrible approach?

Thanks for any insight!

5 Comments
 

You can definitely target SF but don’t count out other locations for backups incase it doesn’t work out

 

It’s hard to say, idk what kind of school you’re at but try and network with all alumni regardless of location. I know for some banks if you network with NYC for example, they can still have pull if you’re trying to go for their SF office. Besides alumni in other offices I would purely focus SF if that’s what you want.

 

Just send more emails. If you're really dedicated, just take extra time to draft more emails and send them all over the U.S. - if someone responds, prep well for the chat i.e. read up on their coverage and have smart questions prepared, as well as answers for why banking, why X coverage, why X city, etc. May be helpful to target people in tech groups working out of NY, given I assume you're prepping tech hard for SF. LA will be harder but again, worth sending emails. Recruiting is too much of a crap shoot these days to try and focus on a single city 

 

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