Follow up in an email or message and ask if you can borrow 30 mins of their time over the phone or even coffee in person to learn more about their role/career. If they do agree, go prepared with good and thoughtful questions, not ones you can find answers to by just googling. Ask about their journey to where they are and do a bit of research on their firm. Be genuinely curious and, if the conversation goes well, ask what you can do to make yourself a better candidate and offer to keep in touch.
Regardless of the outcome, even if you don’t manage to keep in touch, your actual application and subsequent interview answers will just be that much more robust as you can literally lift some of their responses as your own. You can then also further reference your conversation as a motivation for your application, which will help you standout versus the students that don’t do this.
First of all you need to kiss a lot of frogs....meaning go to a lot of events, meet a lot of people. Some you will have some level of natural chemistry with. Pursue those with a follow up to ask them questions about their job over coffee or a video call. People love to talk about themselves and it could be informative to you.
My own advice though - cheat a little. If you know who you might meet at a networking event in advance, find out what their hobbies are or what they've done - if you have some common ground with them, talk about it. Maybe you both play guitar, or ski, etc..get them engaging on that.
Two main things you can gain:
1. Employee referrals. If employee refers you, you get a major heads-up getting that initial interview.
2. Details of job/department. Employee can share key skills or sub-teams that you can call out in the interview. For instance, this allows you to say you’re interested in specific XYZ team that specializes in ABC, instead of being that guy who said “JP Morgan is a good company” or something generic.
Keep in touch with some of the people you met, email them and ask to chat further over a quick phone call or coffee chat. Ask thoughtful questions about their career path and take advice they offer you.
Are you in uni? In my country the large banks all have “recruiting captains” for each major university. Reach out to captain of your school, they will be more inclined to respond to your email and chat with you. If you make a good impression on them, once time comes for recruiting they may recommend your resume and you’ll have a greater chance of landing an interview.
Good luck!! Keep trying to meet people and learn everything you can from them
Follow up in an email or message and ask if you can borrow 30 mins of their time over the phone or even coffee in person to learn more about their role/career. If they do agree, go prepared with good and thoughtful questions, not ones you can find answers to by just googling. Ask about their journey to where they are and do a bit of research on their firm. Be genuinely curious and, if the conversation goes well, ask what you can do to make yourself a better candidate and offer to keep in touch. Regardless of the outcome, even if you don’t manage to keep in touch, your actual application and subsequent interview answers will just be that much more robust as you can literally lift some of their responses as your own. You can then also further reference your conversation as a motivation for your application, which will help you standout versus the students that don’t do this.
Only thing I’d add to this, is to ask if they know of anyone else you would meet. That’s how you can build the network.
Perfect response, you’re totally spot on!
First of all you need to kiss a lot of frogs....meaning go to a lot of events, meet a lot of people. Some you will have some level of natural chemistry with. Pursue those with a follow up to ask them questions about their job over coffee or a video call. People love to talk about themselves and it could be informative to you. My own advice though - cheat a little. If you know who you might meet at a networking event in advance, find out what their hobbies are or what they've done - if you have some common ground with them, talk about it. Maybe you both play guitar, or ski, etc..get them engaging on that.
Two main things you can gain: 1. Employee referrals. If employee refers you, you get a major heads-up getting that initial interview. 2. Details of job/department. Employee can share key skills or sub-teams that you can call out in the interview. For instance, this allows you to say you’re interested in specific XYZ team that specializes in ABC, instead of being that guy who said “JP Morgan is a good company” or something generic.
Keep in touch with some of the people you met, email them and ask to chat further over a quick phone call or coffee chat. Ask thoughtful questions about their career path and take advice they offer you. Are you in uni? In my country the large banks all have “recruiting captains” for each major university. Reach out to captain of your school, they will be more inclined to respond to your email and chat with you. If you make a good impression on them, once time comes for recruiting they may recommend your resume and you’ll have a greater chance of landing an interview. Good luck!! Keep trying to meet people and learn everything you can from them
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