What am I doing wrong? Please help!
Hello WSO Community,
I have had few coffee chats and phone interviews with alumni from my school (target for IB-Duke, UVA, NYU type.) Most people I have spoke to, gave me a cold shoulder or "let's stay in touch" type of response. I have been networking and working really hard to get these and I don't know what am I doing wrong. I have read all the guides on networking, usually try to have a normal conversation and show interest in the person and their jobs and nothing seems to work. I am a nice guy and easy to get along with and show true passion in IB. The worst part is that no one even tells me what I did wrong or what can I do better and that's really frustrating. I get that no one owes me anything but how am I suppose to get better (IK its not their problem)
I feel like even after doing all these coffee chats, my chances are virtually zero because I don't have any true contact anywhere. I have been hustling this whole time for nothing. If anyone can help me out here, It'll be very helpful.
I wouldn't feel comfortable telling people if they do bad but I can see your that won't be helpful for students. I guess you can probably talk to someone who more closer to you and ask them to give you feedback.
Can you elaborate more on the content of the coffee chats?
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I try to have genuine conversations so don't have set questions. Most of the times its the ususal questions like why IB, Why this Bank, What they like about it, What/how many types of deals they worked on etc. Sometimes I ask about Ugrad experience and experience living in the city compared to our school( which is in middle of no where)
you prolly came off as too generic because you prepare too much for these conversations. sometimes if you yolo and say whatever comes to your mind you might rub some people the wrong way but also click really well with some others
Someone told me to treat this like an actual interview. I mean even I feel like it's little generic but I don't have much experience with networking.
my general tip is do some research on the person and talk about stuff that they actually are a part of. Talking about "why IB" is kinda pointless cause 95% of people are doing if for the money and to set them up for PE, but 100% of people will respond with "great place to start career and gain as much experience as possible, enjoy challenging myself, love learning about valuation, etc". So ngl thats kinda a pointless question. Same with why bank cause odds are they chose that bank cause it was the best offer they got...we're all going through the same struggle so if you were to get an offer tomorrow you'd prob take it and when some kid asks "why that bank" you're prob gonna make up some BS about the culture or great training programs, etc. So back to doing the research, by this I mean find out what groups the bank offers (industry, products, etc) and what verticals may be in those groups. It's gonna take some poking around on WSO and google, but just get a general idea for the structure of the bank. Then what i really enjoy talking to the people about is getting to learn more about the group they are in, why they chose the group (maybe its better culture, maybe better learning experience), whether or not they specialize on one particular vertical or are a generalist in the group, etc. While not everyone can choose what bank they get selected for, choosing what group is much more up to each person. So i'd focus on this as a point of conversation. Other than that, talk about just whatever flows from the conversation, ask about the internship program and how its stuctured, talk about living in NY, maybe they studied abroad, idk. But yeah there's my advice
SB'ed!
Thanks for the advice. It makes a lot more sense now and I get you can't obviously say you did this solely for PE.
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