I've been cold emailing alumni and I've had more than a couple MDs just ask analysts who don't go to my school to reach out and do the informational phone call instead. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Can someone explain the thought process behind an MD doing this other than maybe not wanting to waste his time?
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Nothing out of the ordinary, I've seen this happen plenty of times. It's not because the MD is big dogging you, they just get contacted by tons of kids and obviously they can't schedule a call with each and every kid.
The call with the analyst can go a couple of different directions. In some cases, the analyst will be unhelpful in other cases the analyst can be a gateway to other opportunities (SA or FT).
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I'm just worried since the analyst didn't go to my school, he has less incentive to help me out. Would I just treat this like any other call?
Yup, this sort of thing has happened to me too when I was recruiting, especially if the bank did OCR at my school. This was because many people from my school were emailing the MDs and the MDs didn't have time to take all of the calls.
Take the calls with the analysts. If they like you, they can get you an interview.
Very common, not a bad sign. In fact I always recommend students reach out first to junior bankers for this reason so that you build your reputation from the ground up. Ideally, by the time you talk to the MD it should be a warm contact, i.e. people in the team have recommended you.
Right(bad sign would probably just be not responding or reading the email lol), but not all the offices have analyst/associate alumni. So would your guys' advice be to just treat this like a normal call, and then just ask for referrals as usual? Would the analyst potentially talk to the MD about how I did?
I would treat it as a normal call, since the Analyst is not far away from where you are now, ask about why and how they got there, what they do now in the team, and what they are planning to do in the future (e.g. PE interviews are all done for the junior analysts).
Definitely ask for a referral, usual "Hey, thank you very much for your time, it was really helpful for me to understand more about [] and I would love to learn more. Is there anyone else in your group that you might be able to put me in touch with?"
I can't say with 100% certainty how NY recruiting works but in regional offices the Analyst would absolutely inform the MD about how you did, especially if the MD asked the Analyst to do the call in the first place.
Thanks for the advice man, it actually went pretty decent, and he turned out to be in charge of SA recruiting! Nice come up on that part.
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