Cold emailing/calling boutiques

Hello Everyone,

I am in the process of trying to land a summer position at a boutique investment bank for this summer. I have been cold calling/emailing and getting a lot of positive responses, however; most have responses such as "I respect you for being forward and taking initiative, but we are not taking any interns on at this point in time".

How do I respond to this? Should I give up on that person, or would it be too much to ask if they know of anything? Or attempting in any way to leverage their response into something else, another connection etc.

Thanks.

12 Comments
 

You are early in the game so you should not worry about cold-calling. I would actually focus on networking. I cold-called in my sophomore year only because it was already March/April/May.

And sounds like you go to a big school--so you could find a lot of people in financial services industry, so the best option for you would be to jump on LinkedIn and find out alumni from your school at regional boutiques and middle market investment banks and ask them if you could assist them. This works much better than cold-calling.

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

Otherwise you would be wasting a lot of time because there are only few people on the street who would be willing to hire someone out of freshman year.

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

Your target is to get them on phone or get them to have coffee or lunch with you (in their office is more preferable).

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

So look at their website, call the receptionist, find their number, and call them directly. And please, focus only on MDs for these small firms--not VPs, not Associates; straight up MDs. Got it?

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

As a Freshman, I would learn more about IB from older students who are pursing a path in the field or read to work in the field plus other research (WSO, M&I). At this stage, I networking would be a key for you especially at this stage.

Authored by: Certified Corporate Development Professional - Director
 

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