What to wear to coffee meetings?
I have a coffee meeting with an SVP at one of the big brokerages. This is supposed to be just a chat about the industry, but I will definitely be implying that I'd like to work there. What should I wear to the meeting? It's pretty cold out right now and I was thinking of just wearing jeans and a jacket. But after looking at a few relevant threads to my question on here (but in the investment banking section), it seems like most people would come to the meeting in more formal clothing. What do yall think?
"Dress for the job you want."
Just put on a suit without a tie
suit with or without tie and a conservative overcoat. good chance he will be in a suit and tie, esp if he has meetings that day
Want to say HFF in Houston is still a coat and tie shop, and I think a few other groups there are as well. You wont raise any eyebrows with a suit no tie or dress pants and a sports coat. Skip the jeans until you get the job. No boots either (no matter how nice they are).
Suit and tie. Nobody will think you’re overdressed. If you skip the tie or jacket, there’s a chance nobody will care but a chance they will care and be offended. Why take the chance?
Thanks guys, +SB to all of you
Just curious, how will you be implying that you want to work there?
I'm at the same stage as you are, and I find this part the hardest when doing informational interviews. Most of the time they bring it up themselves
Personally I tell them why I like their company. Know what sets it apart. And then tell them I would like to work there.
This is my first informal interview so I'm not sure yet, but probably similar to how @SponsorPromote" put it.
Nit-picky points for the sake of discussion:
Since we're going into detail with this, do I offer to buy his as well (even though I'm clearly just a college student and he probably makes a lot of money), seems kind of weird. Do I buy my coffee and sit down before he gets there if I'm there before him?
just wait it out. Get up and get online with him when he comes. Also, I dont see anything wrong with getting tea if you are not a coffee person.
Get in line with him and offer to buy, but he won't let you if he is remotely normal. Getting tea makes you sound high maintenance.
You cannot go wrong ordering an americano.
Get a large black coffee. Just kidding, but don't get tea for your own sake. You better have at lease one mutual friend or connection you can talk about. That's how you get through the first half of any coffee meeting.
You don't need to know the deals he's working on. People on here go overboard with the linked-in/online stalking IMO - if someone knew this about me I would think it's really fucking creepy. Have a few well thought out, GENERAL questions about either the field, the firm, or the market, and go from there. Then you can get more detailed about his specific team/deals if the conversation naturally progresses there.
If you want to make it personal/shared connection, like if you both went to the same college or something and want to work it into conversation and haven't already discussed it, find a subtle way to get him talking about it other than 'I NOTICED YOU ALSO WENT TO XYZ COLLEGE' because to me it's super fucking creepy you had to be that blatant about it. There are smoother ways to work it into the conversation.
Again, in brokerage especially, your success at the later stages of the career will be close to 100% predicated on your ability to get people to a) believe you are technically competent and b) get them to like you. This means being able to game a conversation and let it evolve naturally/be able to pivot to a discussion instead of trying to force-frame it.
Also, I agree with everyone saying that he knows you want a job, but I do think you need to emphasize that you want to work with HIM if that's an option. You'd be surprised how many brokerage pitches I hear where they don't ever actually ask for the business, which is a mistake. Your competitors in brokerage will explicitly beg/plead/demand the business from clients, so you better start learning how to finesse this as well. It can be as simple as 'thanks for your time, I really learned a lot from this conversation and I'm even more convinced that this is where I want to be. If any openings come up on your team, I'd love to be considered for them.'
Thanks for your input. I already had the coffee meeting and it went very well imo. Very nice guy that seemed to like me, and said I'm on the right track. Also said I could use his name wherever it would help me (not sure what he meant by this though, if anyone has any idea, feel free to let me know). I wish I had read your last paragraph before though, I send him a thank you email and didn't imply I wanted to work there. I kind of implied it during the meeting though, but only by asking a lot of questions about the analyst responsibilities are on his team. I think we will be keeping in touch though, so I will definitely reach out to him and ask him to let me know about any open opportunities eventually.
It seems to me you can use it when talking to other people at the company, "I talked to x" or maybe in an interview there?
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