How to get a networking call (Part 1): the outreach
By SuperdayReps · Michigan Ross Undergrad | Wharton MBA · ex-Citi | ex-Greenhill · Former Head Mentor at a Leading IB Prep Service
11 min read · updated September 13, 2026
Everything else in this library assumes somebody is already in a room with you. This is the part that gets you the room. It is also the part almost nobody teaches properly, because the honest version of it is unglamorous: it is a volume game with a low hit rate, played over weeks, and it mostly comes down to whether your message is short enough to read and specific enough to answer.
Start with the number, because it reframes everything after it. If you send a hundred messages, expect somewhere between two and ten replies. Maybe worse. That is not a sign you are doing it wrong. That is the base rate for a stranger asking a busy person for time, and knowing it up front is what stops you from quitting after the first fifteen unanswered emails.
The low hit rate is exactly why the system matters more than any single message. One perfect email to one person is not a strategy. A repeatable message you can send fifty times, plus a record of who you sent what to and when, is.
Warm beats cold, every time
Before you write a single cold message, spend an hour mining for a warm introduction. Parents, aunts and uncles, your parents' co-workers, the parents of your friends, anyone your family knows. Go through LinkedIn and look at second and third degree connections. If you have ever been owed a favor, this is what you spend it on.
The reason is simple and it is worth hearing from the other side of the desk. When a friend asks a banker to speak to their nephew or their friend's kid, that banker will drop what they are doing and take the call. The same person will not open a cold email from a stranger.
And if you have none of those connections, you are still fine. Plenty of people who now work in banking had no family friends in the industry and networked their way in anyway. It is a genuine advantage and its absence is not a disqualification. It just means more of your outreach is cold, which means more volume.
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Frequently asked
- How do you get a banker to reply to a cold email?
- Keep it short, lead with the thing you have in common in both the subject line and the first sentence, attach your resume and say in one line that you have, and ask for ten to fifteen minutes while offering to work around their schedule. Length is what gets a message skipped. The resume is the opposite: where analysts and associates run the chats that build the interview schedule, having it in the thread is the point.
- What is a realistic reply rate for cold outreach in investment banking?
- Low. If you send a hundred messages, expect somewhere between two and ten replies. That is normal and it is why outreach is a volume game played over weeks, not a handful of perfect emails.
- Should you network with analysts or MDs?
- Both, and if you are going to skew, skew junior. MDs and VPs carry more sway in the process, but at least at some banks the analysts and associates are the ones tasked with the September and October coffee chats, and those chats are what build the interview schedule. They also reply far more often and sit in resume screens. Every conversation is a data point you can cite when you get asked why you want that firm.
- How often should you follow up if a banker does not reply?
- About a week after the first message, and again a week after that if there is still nothing. As long as each note is short and respectful the downside is low. After three messages with no reply, close it down with a polite last line and put the effort into the next name. Each follow-up should still carry a reason to write rather than repeating the original ask.
- Is it better to email or use LinkedIn for networking?
- Email first when you can find the address, because it is more likely to be read. LinkedIn is a real fallback and some people live in it, so use both rather than treating one as the only channel.