Houlihan Lokey Says Contacting Will Hurt Your Chances. Is This True? My dream job is to work in their ADG practice.

Just like the title says. My dream IB job would be to work at Houlihan Lokey in their Aerospace Defense and Government practice. I have experience in the industry and am really interested in combining my financial background with my passion from Aerospace and Defense. Having grown up around the D.C. Metro-Area, ADG is in my bones. I know I could be successful there, but I have yet to get a look coming from a non-target school. The firm says reaching out to senior officers will negatively impact your chances. Is this true? Does that mean only MD's? Does anyone have experience with this? Help- Feels like my balls have been stripped. I hate leaving my app in limbo without having a chance to reach out on this one.

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Best Response

Yeah, it is. Don't do that. I can pm you the person in charge of recruiting there. They might've moved on as this was about a year ago. But this way you can add HR on LinkedIn, which should be much less frowned upon than contacting bankers. Although, I will advise that HL views itself as an elite institution and doesn't think outsiders from its core target schools are worth a chance. But just be respectful and show you're open to any opportunity, as well as competent enough to do the job if you really are that good per your other post.

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