What does networking even mean?

I see a lot of posts on here suggesting to network, but I don’t really understand how to do so. I’m an international freshman student as well, so doing things online through different timezones has made things pretty difficult. I’ve got a few questions that I haven’t been able to get answered as a result, I’d greatly appreciate any help.

How do I find people to network with? Where do I find their contacts? Is there a specific industry or bank category (EB/BB/MM) that I should be looking to connect with in my freshman summer? I know it’s probably way too late for that but I was hoping someone could give me guidance.

Do I just send them an email after? What do I say in the email?

7 Comments
 

Perfect, thank you. Would you recommend finding an individual at the bank and emailing them, or using the “contact us” email/form listed on their website?

Also, what would you advise putting in the email? Should I attach my resume etc or should I just say “I’m interested in your firm, I’d love to talk more about it with you if you’d be willing to give me the opportunity”

 
Most Helpful

Probably an unpopular view and one that will get MS but I swear to god idk why people think its difficult to get the email of someone. There are two steps:

1) Look up the name on LinkedIn. lets say it is John Doe from the firm XYZ

2a) Search on google "email format for XYZ" and click on one of the first websites. It'll say that the format is "firstinitial . lastname @ xyz.com "

2b) enter the email as XYZ.COM>[email protected] and send the email. 

While there are always exceptions (given there will be times when there are two people with the same name etc.) this is how I found out the names and it was pretty successful.

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If you are interested in IB and can't find the email address for a well-known company, it'll be difficult to find random comps for a unknown private company in a niche sector. 

 

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