HF Networking in London?
Top BB IBD analyst in London with previous HF internship experience, looking to move to a L/S single manager in London.
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How common is cold messaging on LinkedIn?
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Any London HF analysts who can say how often they get messages about coffee chats..etc
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Any tips on how to approach this?
For reference I'm targeting funds like TCI, Egerton, Lansdowne, Theleme, Naya, AKO...
Easy.
1. Send a connection request on LinkedIn by explicitly asking for permission: "Hi, I came across your profile and I'd love to connect and ask you a couple of questions if that's okay? or... Do I have permission to connect and ask you a couple of questions? You can also say something along the lines... "I would appreciate your thoughts. Your advice will be invaluable."
I hold the belief that people are always willing to help. ALWAYS.
2. If someone hasn't replied after you've connected, it's not that they're ignoring you. They may be busy. So, follow up in a polite manner.
3. You may ask someone to become your mentor. Imagine you receive a message from someone who asks you to become their mentor. How do you feel about it? It's flattering, isn't it?
3. Build relationships with people. Like... REAL relationships. Meaningful relationships.
4. Be curious about them. Ask good questions. Research them. Y
5. A good idea is to like or comment under their posts before you send a connection request.
6. A relationship goes both ways. Don't underestimate your value. You may be able to help that person in the future no matter your job title or seniority.
7. Ask them to have a 10 min chat. Or a 5 min chat.
8. You may ease in by just asking only ONE thoughtful question. Also... when you send a connection request and say something like ... "I want to ask you only one question. Your input will be enlightening..." people are curious to know what the question is... what do you want from them... Curiosity/mystery bias ... ;)
I can go on forever here but I think that's enough for you to go out there and connect with people. There is nothing more powerful than that.
It will change your career.
Loving you, Angelos.
YMMV but this seems like bad advice for London. I've never engaged with a random request for a call from someone I don't know unless we are actively hiring and have a job listing up (and even then rarely).
Use your existing network / contacts and ask for an intro to someone.
In my experience, London is much less of a networking / cold messaging type of market than the US. Many of the funds you listed will hire a lot of people through personal recommendations and contacts - c.f. the ex - Cazenove research group of analysts all across London HFs (especially at AKO). My team are currently running a recruiting process at the junior analyst level, and I've had a handful of 'cold messages' - but these have exclusively been from people not currently based in London (mostly North American based analysts looking to move to London) and almost exclusively from people with IBD / PE backgrounds. All of these I've ignored - partly because our job ad is very explicit about wanting someone with public equity experience (buy side / sell side ER). I have however had a few former colleagues / clients get in touch, who I'm more likely to spend time speaking to as I have a bit more of an understanding of whether they could do the job from interacting with them in a professional context. This is just one of those cultural differences with London vs the US. It might be that some of the HFs that target people with IBD backgrounds (TCI is the one you listed that does as far I know, most of the others were founded by / are primarily staffed by people with SS ER / LO AM backgrounds) - some of the big US funds with London offices seem to target IBD backgrounds more, as do event driven funds.
When I was on the sell side and looking to move across to the buy side, most of my interviews came either from directly applying to listings on all the usual careers boards, headhunters, clients that I covered reaching out to ask if I was interested in interviewing for something, or friends offering an intro.
If you have friends in PB / equity sales at your bank who you trust (or even better, a different BB), it might be worth chatting with them to get a sense of whether any of their clients are hiring - some funds will flag openings and lean on a broker to help with recommending some potential candidates.
Thanks for your reply. The general preference for sell side ER, LO AM..etc is precisely why I wanted to take a more active approach to cold messaging as I know I don't have that background, while still having a top IBD + long internships in HF so I would consider myself at least a decent candidate in general.
When you mention job boards, which other than efinancialcareers are useful?
It would be super helpful if you could also share good HF recruiters - are they the same as for PE (KEA, Blackwood, PER..etc)?
Weirdly I think I found my current role advertised on Glassdoor of all places. But efinancialcareers and linkedin (increasingly) would be the main places to keep an eye out.
The main headhunters I have not found to be complete time wasters from the candidate side are: Dartmouth Partners, Mondrian Alpha, HW Anderson, Pelham (the recruiter not the fund), Leverton Search (more for LO roles).
From the recruiting fund side - we mainly use Blackwood. I've got no experience being on the candidate side with them though.
FYI I've found PER to be complete time wasters when it comes to public markets - they are constantly trying to advertise HF investor relations / capital raising roles to me...
One thing to bear in mind with recruiters - just by nature of the business model the HFs that are hiring the largest volume of analysts in London will always be the MM platforms. So when recruiters advertise equity L/S roles to you try and get them to confirm it's not one of these roles before wasting your time speaking to them if you're set on looking for somewhere with a longer-term oriented investment style.
Last thing I should have said in my original post - if you are still in touch with people from your HF internships, use those contacts. The HF community in London is not that big and a lot of roles get filled through word of mouth advertising rather than formal job listings. It's a much lower risk to just hire someone you / someone you trust has worked with in the past.
Thanks! Will definitely also try to tap into my former PMs' relationships as we got on quite well and I'm sure they'd be happy to help.
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