How to Get Your Resume Pushed?
I'm curious, when someone reaches out you to network with you, what does it take for you to push their resume? Is it their resume or personal connections with you, or do you mainly judge by the call?
And what "level" does the person have to attain for you to push? Like do they just generally have to seem like a good candidate, or do you expect them to be very exceptional?
For me it depends on the situation:
1) Are we actively looking to hire someone for the team / within the firm? In that case if someone reaches out about the role I'll first see if the resume looks strong / get a sense of their background on paper. If that seems to check out, I'll have a call with them to get to hear more about what they've done, but more importantly (for me) how they interact and can speak to their experience and interest, interpersonal skills, etc. If that goes well, I'll send it to HR / hiring team saying I've spoken to them and they would be a good candidate for the role.
2) If we are not actively looking to hire a specific position, I usually judge on the basis of the resume itself and will pass on a strong resume to HR without speaking to the candidate, though I'd mention this (strong experience but haven't spoken), and they can keep on file or see if the person looks like a match for any other roles that I'm not involved with.
To answer your question directly, no, they don't have to be very exceptional over the call for me to push the resume. If someone has a resume that I would consider strong (good school + good work experience) and is able to communicate properly with me over email / over the call, that should do the trick. If the work experience is very good, I'll be more lenient on the school. But consider that they've already gotten into the good school, gotten a good GPA and gotten a good job, which in many ways speaks for itself.
This is great. For context, could you add what type of firm do you work at and what general level are you within the firm? I assume PE based on the username, but is it MF, MM, etc.? Also, are the people typically reaching out to you current students with internships as work experience, or do you mean professionals? If it’s professionals, what’s your reasoning behinds still caring about what school they went to? Does GPA matter at all to you, or is it just a quick glance but you really only care about how good the school is overall? Thanks, I realize I’m being such a prospect w 20 questions
Was earlier an analyst with a large bank (hiring for FT and SA roles) and then with a MM/UMM fund, which hired direct analysts from schools as well as lateral / experienced hires. Most of the emails I get are either 1) Current students 2) Grads with 1-4 years experience or 3) Occasional people with more experience but are alumni of my university, reaching out to network with the firm in general
The professionals are generally pretty fresh out of school (usually in their 1st role out of school, maybe 2nd), so school to me still has some meaning. If they are a student GPA matters, if they have graduated then I don't really care unless it is a glaringly low GPA (for example even someone with 2-3 years experience but a 2.8 GPA would stand out to me).
Currently recruiting for summer 2021. But I feel like I can provide some good insight on this given my resume is not the strongest and I don't have any personal connections in the industry, yet I have managed to get interviews at a handful of EBs through cold calling and had plenty of people at BBs tell me they have passed along my resume without me even asking them to do so (hopefully those turn into interviews soon). I am in no way exceptional and certainly don't believe I am more qualified than the next person for these jobs, in fact, people are probably disappointed when they look at my resume after I call them, but I believe I have been able to get passed along because I put in the effort during calls to connect with them and get to know them.
From my experience, it is all about connecting really well with the analyst/associate/vp you are talking to. That means having a strong greeting, being proactive in creating small talk and interesting conversation at the beginning of the call, laughing at all their jokes, then smoothly transitioning into your story, and asking them thoughtful questions about themselves and their experience at the firm, being "wowed" by their experience (if you listen carefully a lot of these guys have actually done pretty cool stuff), then wrapping it up nicely at the end by noting that you understand their time is precious and are extremely grateful for taking your call.
Sometimes you can try to make small talk but they aren't into it. That's ok, you can't relate to everyone but if you don't try it won't happen. There are things you can control though: your greeting (make sure you are clear and upbeat/ not dull. If you have a monotone voice and sound tired, do you think they will be excited to speak with you when they are probably a lot more tired than you) your questions (always look up the person you are about to speak with. I try to get details on their school major and career path to ask questions specifically about that. These are safe questions because they are personal and allow the person to talk about themselves but they are also professional questions so it is not inappropriate), your listening (this one has been especially hard for me but I believe is the most important part of any call. You have to be able to listen, digest, and understand the answers being given to your questions so that you can ask meaningful follow up questions and actually create a conversation rather than a q&a session. If you're not listening to their story, you will miss an opportunity to add in a personal anecdote to show how you relate to them or ask them a meaningful and interesting question), your ending (be genuinely thankful for their time. These people get hundreds of networking emails and by this time in the recruiting cycle, some have done over 100 of these calls, yet they chose to respond to YOUR email, set aside time to speak with YOU, and picked up the phone when YOU called. If you're lucky, they may have even been looking forward to connecting with an ambitious undergrad in a position that they were in not long ago. Tell them how helpful they have been and that you learned a lot. Even if it was a short call and they were blunt, you still learned something, and that's worth it.
Went on a little rant there but in short, I am not special on paper. My resume is average, I don't have any IB/PE/VC/WM internships, and I have no personal connections that work in finance. So if that is the position you are in, I think the only way you can differentiate yourself is by making an amazing impression when you do manage to get someone on the phone. Spend time thinking of good questions, do a little research about them, practice answering your phone (harder than it sounds), listen to them, try as hard as you can to relate to them and be personable. Again, there are going to be people that you simply can't relate to, but the ones that you are able to relate to, really take advantage of their time. I'm no expert and I'm still yet to receive an offer, so take everything here with a grain of salt, but I've gotten to that first round interview just by connecting well with people. Investment banking and finance is a relationship business and if you can quickly create rapport with someone over the phone, that is valuable. Just my two cents on the matter.
You reply give me so much hope, thanks for the input.
Glad I could add perspective. It's a tough process and I've certainly had my fair share of frustrations, especially as superdays and offers seem to be passing by everyday. But I think if we keep working hard at things that are in our control, we'll end up just fine.
Do you go to a target by any chance?
ill push for someone if they seem like a good person and we hit it off.. dont have to be mind blowningly exceptional or whatever but just be yourself, a lot of people actually want to help you because we've been in your spot as well
Can confirm comments above as someone recruiting for 2021 SA. I talked to 3-4 ppl (A1/A2/VP) at a BB. Those weren't the most perfect conversations but still got a first round. I think it's more about having a decent resume, asking good questions, and being conversational in the call.
Just wondering, did those 3 people explicitly tell you that they pushed your resume to HR?
None. As long as you have a good conversation + ask for additional contacts you'll be fine. That used be my worry because ppl never told me outright they'd push my resume to HR. Now that's not my concern anymore
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