Who Needs to Network

Title, Sophomore here really curious to hear thoughts on where different students stand in the recruiting process since everything is in full swing. Would love to hear opinions on decision-making and outcomes for the following scenarios (i.e. how much does this person need to network, what happens if they don't). Assuming GPA, test scores are the same for all:

Person 1: Semi-target, leadership of well-known national student organization, non-diversity, very strong resume

Person 2: Super-target, diversity, working in MF sophomore summer

Person 3: Non-target, diversity, very strong resume, D1 athlete

I know this varies firm to firm as well, and I would appreciate insights based on this perspective.

3 Comments
 

Person 2 is probably the only person that might get away with not networking, but that’s also because they objectively have the strongest resume of the 3. I’ve met people with that profile that were non diversity and also didn’t have to network.

As someone that technically qualifies as ‘diversity’ (woman), I didn’t get any looks from any banks that had a woman’s application without previously networking with the bank, and ultimately accepted an offer where I went through the normal pipeline of networking with basically the entire group. If my being a woman helped at that final offer stage I don’t know (I hope it didn’t), but anecdotally, as ‘woman from target with STEM major’, I needed to network.

 

I think that this is a poor way to phrase the question. You should be thinking “who wouldn’t be better off networking?” and the answer is NOBODY. If super target diversity KKR summer networked as much as non targets do, they would be on another planet in terms of their prospects.

 
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