What’s the worst networking you’ve seen?

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Final year chick asking me for my number at a career fair instead of my name card. Big difference

Non-IB Intern: "oh you work with ppl in securities?" Friend: "yes..." Intern: "awesome! every social interaction is a networking opportunity, maybe we could talk more!"

Some kid that attended a recruiting/networking at the bank I used to work BBG chat me the next day with some very random info he read on BBG like "Oh I just read about that bond your bank issued for XYZ firm, would you have some time to what about the transaction process?" New issue was not even my group and it's really annoying to have that BBG pop up on your screen when you're super focused on something. Guys - most people networked to get here, and I like to help people to get what they want but please never use your school BBG to reach out, stick to Linkedin

Not sure if this counts but back in undergrad, this girl would not stop trying to "network" with me before I even had an internship offer.

She'd ask me to send her my contact spreadsheet, ask me to introduce her to the person I just spoke to last week, or "put in a good word for her/hand in her resume" at the on campus networking event that she can't attend due to a "sorority related conflict".

Classic case of the princess syndrome if I ever saw one. I don't usually ghost people but it felt good ghosting her.

I cringe any time I get asked / overhear enthusiastic undergrads (usually females) start off a conversation by asking about the "company culture" or "work life balance".

What do you think the difference in "company culture" between JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley is? I'd like to know myself. What am I supposed to tell you about "work life balance"? Do you know anything at all about what you are "applying" for? Am I supposed to assure you that work won't interfere with your wedding szn calendar or spa appointments?

I swear I get or hear these 2 questions almost every other day and it physically pains me. But maybe I'm a grinch idk.

Was at a networking session with a Credit Suisse MD and this one kid wanted to stand out SO hard, he kept asking questions for the sake of it. He ran out of bullshit questions to ask so ended up asking him "What does your son think about becoming an Investment Banker like you?".

Edit: I felt bad because my instance was way too specific and the person was black balled really really badly to the point it was mean. It is probably the same people who do these things and also sit on WSO all day, everyone messes up sometimes and I am sure they are still cringing too.

My own, actually.

I was 20 years old, super ambitious, and had just managed to sneak into a night club where all the local hot shots were partying.

While at a table, a friend of mine casually mentioned that some important dude (trust-fund kid) just walked by us. Apparently he was worth a couple of hundred millions, and was 100% living the playboy life, but also actively investing in local startups.

I thought "This is it, it's now or never", and walked straight to his table, (cold) introducing myself, and starting pitching straight away.

It should be mentioned that he was chilling out with two model-tier ladies, one in each arm.

I started with my rapid-fire pitch, and he looked confused as fuck. It ended with his dates asking who the fuck I was, and him shooing me away "Yeah, ok buddy, not interested". While waving in the bouncers.

I still cringe.

I am Indian and started in the BO and made it to MO at a BB, so Im sympathetic to people with goals.

But Indians who are interested in working in data science at my firm, don't bother to read my profile, then ask if I work in data science at my firm (hint: I work in small data at best, aka excel) then ask if I know recruiters in data science, what data science interviews are like, data science, data science, data science...

Alternatively, you are currently customer service representative but attended my my semi-target university and you are interested in an open rec for VP of Special Situations at my firm. Like seriously if I could get you that job I would just apply for it myself

Repeat cringe, I get these messages every week on linkedin

not so much networking but a really bad first interview. I asked the candidate why he wanted to work in i-banking. "So that I can find out about deals before they happen, and then trade on that knowledge." I was speechless for an awkward 30 seconds, and then rerouted the conversation towards meaningless chit-chat and then got him the F- out of the office before the SEC came fastroping down the side of the building.

I was helping out at a recruitment presentation and networking event a couple years back for a consulting firm. We literally had people bringing their resumes and trying to pass them to some of the junior analysts and ex-interns there, hoping that we would help them bypass HR and land them an interview with the team leads.

There was no real networking by those few people either, they literally just asked dumb questions and threw their resumes at us the first chance they got before leaving. It was weird AF and cringy as hell since I was from the same school as them @@

Nothing egregious, but I’ll get LinkedIn messages from some people who have no idea what my firm even does. I don’t reply to those.

I went to a total non-target. A kid from Penn (I forgot if Wharton) reached out to me, looking for an internship and general recruiting advice. I asked him what he'd been doing so far as far as networking goes, and he said he'd been reaching out to people here and there.

Given that he goes to Penn, I asked him if he had reached out to his alumni network or gone to his school's on-campus recruiting events (remember, he's at Penn). He said he hadn't even considered that.

I was shocked and kind of insulted. Ended the call about a minute later.

I simply never called / emailed the BB MDs who gave me their (unsolicited) name cards and told me I should call them.

But given that one incident happened in a club and another happened during an interview during which he spoke extensively about how much he loved people of my ethnicity, I don't think too badly about it. One of them did manage to find me on Linkedin and added me.

However, I have also had a really bad interview where, back in my 2nd year as an undergraduate, I was gunning for Markets and had zero intention of going into IBD (really funny now that I've ended up in it). Went for a BB networking event that had both IBD and Markets speakers, told HR I wanted Markets. They somehow managed to schedule me for an IBD phone interview and I pissed off two real estate VPs for 5 minutes by telling them I thought the growth rate for their model should be just the country's LT growth rate

Flip the question - what are some GREAT networking that you've done / seen done?

I generally have had better luck networking when I bring some content or thing of value. If I"m trying to network in to get a job, I bring deals in hand. When I was a recent grad interviewing, I brought portfolio of job-related school projects (models I'd built in finance, regressions I put together for strategy class) etc. I generally now don't apply in cold, and instead only focus on building relationships with connected people, and seeing which jobs pop up out of that. I also always save my Friday for networking.

What's worked for you guys?

Friend of mine told that at a London BB a BRITISH intern asked the head of the UK team of they only hired British people (note that it is UK coverage, filled with Brits, just like the German coverage in Frankfurt is full of german folks) after working with the team for more than two weeks.

• Kid didn't get a return offer.

Not sure what networking category this falls into...? I was summer interning at a Top Tier advisory house. CEO of a boutique IB I’d kept in touch with reached-out and requested a partner hook-up in the distressed debt/ special sit. team I was hustling in (GFC time). Made the hook-up, interrupted the partner, he was late, the boutique’s CEO starts spinning shit about, like, IMF... WTO... ASEAN (WTF did I know). I’m like, sitting in the meeting, feeling like a baller... Big T closes the meeting... time passes... and... then... he totally publicly fucked me for wasting his time... he fucked me so hard, I think I copied and pasted same part of the model, for, like 3 hours. Lesson, just chill. Know your network.

"I have you on LinkedIn! Congrats on your new role at XYZ Capital. So Uh do you think you can go on my page and endorse these 4 skills".

I KID YOU NOT. Never even met the guy before,

Not exactly networking, but courtesy first round phone interview for potential SA with connections to firm management:

"Okay, so, can you walk me through the three financial statements?"

"The what?"

This dude at a conference just handed out his business card to everyone who walked by him. Without saying a word. Or looking.

Handing them out like flyers for a restaurant.

At b-school info/meet & greets, these guys would get this big circle formed around them, everyone jockeying to be right in front and ask a question. I remember this one dude, every event, every question was something along the lines of "Don't you think it is really important for people to have quantitative backgrounds like engineering and to have taken financial statement analysis, like I have?" Then he would get more narrow, like, "Don't you think it is really good for people to have taken 6 accounting courses and 5 finances courses and gotten at least a B+?" Just got really uncomfortable . . . .

While working at a boutique advisory shop, we had an intern with a hard on for a BB offer. I caught him sifting through the business cards dropped in a fish bowl for a chance at a free lunch at a local eatery. I found it odd at the time, but figured he was just trying to game the raffle for a free meal given it was an unpaid internship, etc. Only later I found out he was picking up BB cards wherever he could find them. He would call these unsuspecting individuals claiming they met at [insert fictitious place of encounter based on extensive internet stalking] and try to finagle his way into an interview. He had several other schemes he was running in parallel and eventually got called on it. It all blew up and he was effectively blackballed. Last I heard, he was placed on suicide watch by his university after the tale of his shenanigans went viral on the interwebs. I have some sympathy for the guy as he was young and blinded by his ambition, but the real victims were the BB contacts he sourced from the fish bowl. Not only did he waste their time with his BS call, he ruined any shot they thought they had at a free lunch.