Cold Outreach Help

I have a detailed coffee chat guide I used to secure and attend hundreds of coffee chats, so let me see if I can add my two cents and share that when I'm less dead (it's way too late over here). 

First off, you're coming across far too formal - you want to interact with them as colleagues rather than superiors. If you approached some guy a year above you in your campus, you wouldn't say: "Hey Mr. Pokemon, the weather is quite lovely this time of year" - you would probably speak more candidly. The same can be applied to these LI messages and emails to make you come across as more approachable. The second, your call to action of "wanting to learn more about investment banking" is far too vague. If I received this for consulting, I'd think "does... this guy know anything about consulting? Or my firm?" finally, your email is too long - the golden rule of emails is to keep them to three concise sentences - there are exceptions to the rule, but we'll ignore that for now. 

For your email, I'd reformat to: 

"Hello {First Name}, 

I'm a # year student at {Your University} in the {Program}. I'm interested in pursuing a career in {Whatever they're in}. I'm sure you're quite busy, but I'd love to hop on a 15-30 minute call to learn more about your experiences at {Firm} as a {Position}. 

Thanks, 
{First Name}" 

The above is far more concise. It shows you know what firm he/she works at, in what position, and gives a brief synopsis about you. I'd also attach resume for any emails. You can utilize the same approach almost verbatim for LinkedIn.

After the initial send, there are a few things that might happen: 

• Unfavourable:
  • For Email, they read it and ignore it because they're too busy with a live deal
  • For LI, they read it and accept and then ghost you or they read it and not accept. - Some people literally accept just to have bigger reach for their own content creation, more of a trend in marketing/content creation than IB/Finance
• Favourable: 
  • They message back with some form of "Hey, thanks for the email; sure, what time works or does x time work?" 

I would 100% give the option of phone or zoom. I've had chats while the other person was at the gym/for a walk, and I've had plenty where they were on zoom and got pinged by their boss and plenty others where it went uninterrupted. 

Make sure you have some objective/goal in mind for the chat. Whenever I begin a chat, I tend to say, "hey, thanks for taking the time to chat, just a bit about me, {synopsis}, I wanted to chat to learn more about {goal}". It helps drive the conversation, takes 60-90 seconds to state and helps them understand why you wanted to meet. 

After that, have a list of 10-20 questions. Like... "I saw you also studied at {your university}, was there any club or conference you thought really helped you learn more about IB early in your career?" or "What kind of advice would you give students trying to break into IB outside of coursework?" - something open ended and pointed shows that you've done your research and are interested. You can definitely ask about experience like "How does the day to day differ in IB? I understand that it's a blend of administrative responsibilities, written documents and financial modelling. Has this been the case for you?" 

If the guy is really into a story about his early days or walking you through a day in the life, then continue the conversation from there. 

Finally, don't take any rejection/lack of conversion to heart. I've gotten ghosted by... hundreds (or more) of people across the industry. It's not a matter of having 1,000 coffee chats with 1,000 people, rather finding a few that can help as mentors or colleagues and offer further guidance down the line. 

Rather you speak to the same person three times than three people once. 

Hope the above advice helps - I have some detailed step-by-step guide I'll find and share on this thread when I'm less dead. 

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Edit: adding the coffee chat guide I drafted up a little while back in another post. 

How to Navigate the Coffee Chat
 

1. Finding the Right People 

Look for colleagues at your local office(s) through LinkedIn. Filter by the following: 

• Geography - look for your top two to three offices, often if you have a team or know the different practices that the London office is known for, you can reach out to an array of colleagues across different practice groups
• Seniority -  look for a range of colleagues that:
  • have just begun working (~1 year or less) for a realistic view of the training and experience as well as some more senior.
  • Have a few years of experience and may be in charge of analysts (~2-5 years of experience). Dependent on the firm, this couid be Senior Associates, Managers, Engagement Managers, etc. 
  • Have been at the firm for at the Partner level (~7 years or more). Often the ultimate hiring decision falls to Partners, so if you manage to get a Partner on the phone (via cold email), then you'd better understand the practice the Partner operates in and come in with questions prepared for an open discussion. 
• Connection - look for colleagues that come from your educational background, around your age group, or share some commonality (it may even be a club or sport). 

2. The Elevator Pitch 

When reaching out to people via LinkedIn or cold email, always keep it to three sentences or less with resume attached for emails. 

The message could be something along the lines of "Hi X, I'm a x year university student looking to learn about your experience at McKinsey. I see you've worked as a [Position] and have taken on projects in [Sector] and [Sector] sectors. Do you have 15-30 minutes for a coffee chat via Zoom or over the phone?" 

You want to keep it very short with a call to action (to have them get on a call with you) and attach your resume so that you save them the trouble of searching you on LinkedIn.

Note: do NOT take any rejections/ghosting or otherwise personally, most people are busy with work, their own lives, their hobbies/interests, wanting to chill outside of work, so if someone connects on LI but doesn't respond or ignores your email, understand it's just because they're busy with their own situation. In contrast, if someone is willing to get on the phone/zoom, they're taking time out of their day to do you a favour.

3. The Coffee Chat

In the coffee chat, don't talk about yourself, do provide context for the call. a quick 30-60 seconds about why you wanted to speak to them sparks the conversation and guides the discussion. I often say: "hey, thanks for the call, just to give some context, I wanted to learn about your experience give my position as x, y, and z."

Have open ended questions and just treat it as a conversation. If you're curious about the recruitment process, then transition and ask, but be prepared to not use any question you prepared. 

At the end of the chat, you can either ask directly or give the prompt "is there anything you'd advise I do when applying to stand out?" - in my experience, most folks will advise I send them my resume for an internal referral or ask I connect with another colleague/HR at the firm. 

Ways to mess up a coffee chat: 

• Being robotic and asking questions as if interviewing the person - if the colleague is telling a story, or really fascinated in a discussion, ask questions to further that then say "okay, so question #3 - do you refer people on the first chat". 
• Being unprepared and asking questions that could be found on LI - if you got a chat with some from McKinsey but didn't look up how long he's been at the firm, or what projects/sectors he covers (if available on LI), then it just reflects poorly on you
• Talking too much about yourself -  some people spend too much of the time speaking on their unique circumstances rather than asking open ended questions. I understand the impulse of wanting to connect, but it's important to understand that people love to talk about themselves when given a chance, so you need to be fascinated more than you need to be fascinating. 

4. After The Coffee Chat

It doesn't matter if you end up working at the firm or not, keep the people who made time out of their day to connect, informed of your growth and update them. I made some fantastic friends through just connecting at whim via LinkedIn or email. It's important to not be so transactional think that now recruitment has ended, there's no further reason to speak to person X. In contrast, it works great to learn more about the assignments or projects and share my own experiences over a few coffee chats (or emails).

Final Note

Keep in mind, referrals only really make sure your resume/application package is read, it does not guarantee an interview and many people have gotten into these big firms without them. Nonetheless, outside of getting a referral, coffee chats help determine if the firm is a good fit for you. I had a friend who was dead set on getting into MBB until she spoke to a senior associate. The Senior Assoc. said how at this one project, he was working ~13 hr + days (for weeks on end) due to understaffing and tight deadline on a DD case. That was a bit of a reality shock to my friend who realized the intensity of the workload and the mental & physical toll it takes on a person.