Cold email personalization

I’m writing cold emails to my schools alums and was wondering, how do you actually do effective personalization in for cold emails? Is going to the same school enough of a connection that I don’t need further personalization? Most of these people havent done crazy deals or have remarkable stories that I can personalize something to them.

Would adding something like that we both have international experiences, early finance interest , etc, work or should it be more focused on deals they have done, like career transitions and trajectories etc? What happens if some of the people I’m reaching out to don’t have any of these traits? Should I not personalize for them?

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Lol, but I’m also emailing higher up (VPs and higher) so they may care about personalization. How did you do it? Any advice on how to best personalize? Do you need to personalize, especially if the person rlly has nothing significant to personalize about? Thanks

 

Thanks. My template is 5 sentences already so I’m not sure what I should get rid of to make room for a sentence of more personalization. Any ideas or is it personalized enough?

Dear Mr. X,

My name is [Full Name) and I'm studying Government and Economics at
SCHOOL. I'd appreciate the chance to learn about your path from SCHOOL to Wall Street.

I am deeply interested in investment banking (particularly X field of IB), and am especially drawn to your bank due to its focus on X. I have experience interning for Morgan Stanley and the U.S. Congress and by engaging in complex finance projects.
I imagine you're busy, but I would greatly appreciate briefly speaking with you at your convenience.
Best regards,
Name

 

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