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How to Land Your Dream Job
The single most important lesson I learned in college (yes… some people learn something at Arizona State University) did not come from any of my courses, but came from a program. It taught me how to backdoor recruiting and bypass the automatic system generated rejections for non-targets. The networking process is essential for a non-target student to land their dream job, especially in consulting and banking. This method has been proven for investment banking and management consulting recruiting.
How to backdoor recruiting is the first piece of advice I pass along to strangers, LinkedIn DMs, friends, and co-workers. Once you figure out how to send a cold email, hop on the phone with a stranger, and hold a conversation for 30 minutes without being awkward, you’ll be able to create endless opportunities for yourself.
That program in college was geared towards Investment Banking recruiting, but if you tweak the method a bit, it can be applied to anything. I used the same exact method to get me into Columbia Business School.
My friends and mentees have used the method to get into top investment banks, consulting firms, startups, and admittance to a top law school (she was also below the median class stats). I recently found out that my friend is using this method for the medical school matching process. So, instead of teaching people over and over, I decided to write this article to save myself some time. The purpose of this article is to teach you the tools needed to land interviews, introductions, etc, this article will not teach you the technical skills needed to excel in an interview, just how to get the interview.
These next steps may be awkward for you at first, but eventually you’ll get used to people ignoring your email. I was lucky… I already had practice being ignored by my ex.
The 6 Step Process to Success
Time needed: 10 hours
To illustrate the process, I am going to pretend I want to work at Deloitte Consulting (no one actually does) to walk us through the steps. The process will be the same for any company.
- Unleashing the Power of LinkedIn
I am assuming at this stage you already have a LinkedIn account and an idea of what type of career you’d like or at least a general direction. In this step we need to make a list of people who we would like to send a cold email to. While you are first starting out, don’t start with your dream firm, work your way up a bit… your first cold emails/calls will be weird. Save your dream firms for when you have more practice (at least 25+ Cold emails sent & 5+ coffee chats/phones calls).
In LinkedIn, click on the “Search” in the top left hand corner on your computer. Then click on “People” afterwards. Then click on “All Filters“
This is the most useful feature in LinkedIn that most people are not aware of. It should look a little something like this if you did it correctly.
- Time to Find Our Target
I am going to search for someone who works at “Deloitte Consulting”, is Located in “Greater New York City Area” , and has the Title “Business Analyst”
After going through various profiles, once you’ve found people you’d like to cold email, we need to find their corporate emails. You will have more success emailing their work email than messaging them on LinkedIn. - Finding Their Corporate Email
This is one of my favorite parts, so all the large companies for example Deloitte, you will usually be able to find the email format online in a blog. Sometimes you can’t find it! When that happens, the resources I use are Hunter.io and Rocketreach.co. It is as simple as typing the companies URL or the person’s name. So for Deloitte, the format is first initial and last name @ deloitte.com, So John Doe would be jdoe@deloitte.com.
- Drafting the Email
I am going to share with you the template I personally used in my cold emails. Remember to tweak it a bit to customize it for each person you are cold emailing. Find something interesting from their LinkedIn
“Dear Bob,
My name is Kazem Harfouche, I am a Finance major at the W.P. Carey School of Business and am currently interning for a publicly traded REIT in the acquisitions department. I am very interested in teamwork and strategy development, and if you are available I would be grateful to hear about yourself and the management consulting industry.
If there is any time within the next couple weeks that is convenient for you, you can reach me at (insert phone number) or by email. I look forward to hearing from you. I greatly appreciate your time.
Best,
Kazem Harfouche” - What to Talk About During The Call?
Don’t expect a response to your emails. You will only get a response about 5% of the time, if you are getting greater than 5%, please let us know what your secret is. I am assuming you already have your 30 sec – 1 minute story down. If you are not sure what the “story” is, there are millions of resources online.
The conversation should start with your story when he/she asks you to tell them about yourself. This is your opportunity to shine. The purpose of this call is to introduce yourself, learn about the person you are speaking with, and learn about the firm and industry. DO NOT ASK FOR A JOB/REFERRAL. Sometimes, if they like you from the first call, they may ask for your resume to give to HR. This basically means HR will reach out to you directly, no need to apply online. For non-target students, this is how they land jobs on Wall St, from the internal referrals. Also, sometimes you won’t get a response for weeks, and out of nowhere, a bunch of responses flood in at once. Be patient. - Thank Them
Make sure you follow up with a short thank you email.
General Tips to Keep in Mind:
- Follow up – People are busy and need to be reminded. Follow up 2 days after your initial email. If they don’t respond after your follow up, cross them off your list and go to your next candidate.
- Adapt – Do not email people from the same firm, in the same city, and same group at once. People talk.
- Strategic – The earlier in the week you send the email, the higher your chances are of getting a response. I recommend Monday/Tuesday mornings. This is based on a study I did for a F500 client while at Deloitte.
- Earn Your Stripes – Do not start cold emailing a Partner without practice, start with the first year analyst at a random firm before targeting your dream firm.
- Develop a Friendship – If you’ve found someone you get along with, stay in touch with that person. Reach out to them once every 3-6 months at least. Wish them a happy holiday, keep them posted with your recruiting journey, etc. It is not all about finding a job, developing a deep network will help you in the long run as well.
- Reach Out to Others Like You – Don’t forget to check for alumni in your industry/target company. I personally reached out to Lebanese people as well (I am Lebanese and thought some might be helpful)
- Put in the Time – This is not the “I’ll show you how to be a millionaire in real estate” gimmick, this method works, but you need to put in the time. For reference, I have sent close to 500 cold emails. You’ll know you put in the time once you reach the monthly limit on LinkedIn. I highly recommend you upgrade to premium during the networking phase.
- Track Your Connections – Make sure you keep track of your connections/emails. I made an excel template to help me through the process. I’ll be sharing the template for free with you. Just enter in your email at the bottom of this page!
If you have any questions, as always, leave a comment or Ask Baba!
If this article helped you land a job or internship, please let us know in the comments below! We’d love to feature you on our weekly newsletter!
Great article, worth the read!