What the h*** is networking for an IB role, anyways?
Hi folks,
Simple question.
There are many cookie-cutter posts around this online, but none of them leave a satisfactory taste.
Let's say I'm starting a top 3 Business School program in the Fall.
I'll join the finance clubs, I'll make friends with the peers there, I'll participate in the "Coffee chats with recruiters", these are all given.
But what is meant by networking, really?
1. is all of the above networking? or
2. is it trying to get them (recruiters, associates) to like you?
3. is it striking casual conversation and displaying ones interest?
4. is it asking questions "whats your day like as a banker? what was your experience recruiting? what are some things you wish you knew, that you do now, when you were recruiting?"
I always see people posting stuff like "it takes networking like hell to land IB", but it's always vague. What do you mean by networking, really?
Networking for an IB role is a strategic process of building genuine relationships with professionals in the industry to increase your visibility, gain insights, and ultimately position yourself as a strong candidate for opportunities. Based on the most helpful WSO content, here’s what networking really entails:
All of the above is networking: Joining finance clubs, making friends with peers, and participating in coffee chats are foundational steps. These activities help you integrate into the ecosystem and start building connections.
It’s not just about getting them to like you: While being likable is important, networking is more about demonstrating genuine interest, professionalism, and a willingness to learn. It’s about creating a positive impression that makes people want to help you.
Striking casual conversations and showing interest is key: Engaging in meaningful conversations, asking thoughtful questions, and showing curiosity about their experiences and the industry are essential. This helps you stand out as someone who is serious about the field.
Asking insightful questions is a big part of it: Questions like “What’s your day like as a banker?” or “What do you wish you knew when you were recruiting?” are great starting points. They show that you’re eager to learn and value their perspective.
Going beyond the basics: Networking isn’t just about attending events or sending LinkedIn messages. It’s about persistence and creativity. For example:
The ultimate goal: Networking is about creating opportunities for yourself. It’s not just about landing a job but also about gaining insights, mentorship, and referrals that can help you navigate the competitive IB recruiting process.
In short, networking is a mix of relationship-building, strategic outreach, and showcasing your genuine interest and fit for the industry. It’s not just a one-time effort but an ongoing process that requires effort, patience, and authenticity.
Sources: Don't Throw Away Your Shot - Networking with Senior Professionals as an MBA, Law to Investment Banking (One Monkey's How-To Guide), Networking 101 – 8 tips from a “non-target” school student, How important is networking really?
Bump
You send out hundreds of emails to alumni, hoping that your messages are personalized enough (such as being from the same selective club) to get a decent response rate. You ask good questions, mention deals they've done, and follow up with them after. You do this enough times with a variety of different investment banks, go to information sessions and follow up with who you had good convos with (this is usually a check the box activity, OCR is basically a joke). I've seen my roommates do this and never understood why they didn't join me as a STEM lord. Scammed by overhyped "exit opps" but I guess they prefer to suffer the academic grind after graduation instead of during college classes.
From what I've gathered, it's the 1st one. But technically the name of the game is grabbing referrals so you can land interviews so it's more of the 2nd one.
In short, networking like hell means sending out hundreds of emails to analyst -> md's to try and get calls to get pushed to other people in the space. Then reaching back out to grab as many referrals as possible to get pushed along the process to land a job. There's only so much time in the world to handle all these calls so the difficulty comes from following up with contacts, spending time doing research on the person, making emails personable, spending time on the call, and then finding more contacts to send emails to.
Edit: networking helps define your answer for why this firm btw so another reason to do so.
An explanation of the 2nd one:
EB's run off of referral system and supposedly they write down a scale of 1 - 5 (maybe) on how well that conversation went. Now I don't know if there's a rubric they're going off of, but I'm guessing it's a mix on:
how you hold yourself in that conversation (refer to Airport test), if you've done your studying for the job (plenty of students here talked about getting technical questions thrown at them during networking calls and knowing how to walk through deals is technically the studying portion), and if you can even make it past the screening (relevant experience).
When you think about it you can classify asking good questions and talking about deals in short as a proxy for is this person able to hold conversation professionaly, did their homework about what I do, and then did their homework to know how this job works.
Even in non EB IB areas referrals still matter and you can probably get 1 - 2 calls in with the same person, the first being introductory and then the second one the ask for a referral. So if the 1st goes poorly, then a referral or an email chain to help out networking shouldn't be given. So in short, if they don't like you then its bad.
fwiw personal anecdotal experience the 3rd (casual conversations) rarely happens in IB/PE, but exists in non IB/PE. Simply because they are usually multi tasking and putting more priority in their work than having the conversations. But your experience may vary.
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