Hi I'm Jenny Rae, the Managing Director of Management Consulted and I'm here today
to talk about the sweet spot of networking. Now networking is one of my
favorite things to talk about, and the reason is that it's a very strategic
process. Many people they're going into consulting and approaching the firms
believe that the strategy starts when you start the case interview, but that is
not true. The strategy starts from the minute you begin to plan your approach,
to the people, and the processes of any one firm. And so I like to talk about the
sweet spot of networking, in order to help you understand how to maximize your
chances of getting responses from people, and building an advocate inside the firm.
So today I've broken down the networking process into five different rules that
are key for hitting the sweet spot of networking. So I'm going to lay those
five rules out for you, and I'm going to be able to highlight them, so that you're
able to understand what we go through, internally inside the firm, and then how
you can work with somebody really clearly. So the first rule is that you
want to make sure that you're talking to the right person at the firm. Now I talked
previously about the different levels of the company, how they're for general
chunky levels, even though they may be broken up into sub levels in many firms –
and in general, one of the common fallacies for consulting is that you
believe that the most senior people will have the most influence on your
application. Well if you're coming in at a very junior position, that's not true.
The most senior people are actually going to be the most removed from your
process. So unless you have a strong relationship built with them already,
it's not likely that they're going to listen to you, or turn an ear to you, or
become an advocate for you. So in general, a good rule of thumb is that if somebody
is one to two years ahead of you inside the firm, they're a great person, a great
target for who will serve as a potential advocate for you inside the firm. Also if
you happen to be at an information session, or if you're looking on LinkedIn,
you connect with somebody who has a common connection in place – maybe a
school, or an interest, or some kind of history in your background, make sure
that you highlight that connection, because that connection might make that
person the right person inside the firm. The second thing that's important to
understand is approaching them at the right time. So at the
right time means, not during the height of recruiting season, and definitely not
right after the height of recruiting season. What firms do is that they sit
down, generally most firms do this in late July or early August, and they
determine their hiring targets for the upcoming year. This is for full-time
hires, which they're open to both experienced hires and on-campus hires.
And when they're going through that process, essentially right when it's done,
every single one of those chairs is available but empty, and it's yours to
grab. So if you go through the networking process in June or July in the US for
this, then it's a really great time to build relationships with people before
they go into extremely busy seasons, where they're both doing their standard
client work, and going through the recruiting process. It's also really
important to understand that for summer internships, the process holds true.
So, you want to go early November or December for internships, for the actual
information sessions, and everything that's tied to that happen in the
January and February timeframe. So make sure that you're making direct approach
to people at the companies before they arrive on campus, before they're busy
with entire informational interviews, and just trying to hit them beforehand, so
they are able to build some rapport. The third thing that it's important to know
is that you want to be talking to someone at the right firm. What I mean by
this is that you don't want to talk to somebody who has been at the firm that left.
While they can be a great source of information, then thats fantastic, and it's
still a key part of networking. When I'm talking about hitting the sweet spot, you
want to hit somebody who's currently inside the firm. They're the ones with
the influence, they're the ones who have the most interest in advocating for you.
In addition, you definitely want to make sure that you're not using up too many
rows of warm networking leads, in order to get contact with somebody in the firm.
You can go directly to them, rather than working through four or five different
people to get friends of friends of friends, who are ultimately inside a
consulting firm. One degree of separation is fine, multiple degrees really ends up
losing its power. The fourth thing is that you want to talk to somebody who's
in the right location. When I'm talking about location, I mean
that offices for consulting are very location specific. So if you're able to
get contact with somebody who's in a particular office, you don't want to then
go through the process of using them to get into another office. You want to make
sure that that office, the one that you're approaching the person in, is an
office of interest to you. And if you're interested in other offices, it's great
to go ahead and let them know that right up front, they can often give you a good
read on what will be possible, or what will be beneficial in terms of your
application. In addition, if there are offices that have particular openings,
oftentimes the networking process is the best way to figure out which offices are
going to be the most attractive for your skills, or background, or for their
current hiring needs. The final thing is that you want to make sure that you're
approaching a person for the right position. And when I say that I mean, for
the right position for you. You need to have some intelligence about the firm,
what they call their different positions, and where you're most likely to fit in.
And you never want to downplay yourself, there are many people who said, well I'm
so willing to come to Bain that I would take the very lowest level of position.
When really it should have been advocating for a manager, or partner
position, based on their age and experience. So even if you feel
unqualified, it's important to recognize that the firm isn't going to place you
in a position that's going to create a weird cultural fit, or a weird dynamic on
the teams. So make sure that you're applying for the position, and calling it
the correct name, that is the most appropriate for you. So these five things
are really critical when you're thinking about going through the process of
consulting. You need to be talking to the right person, at the right time, at the
right firm, in the right location, and for the right position. If you can keep these
five things in mind, where all of those intersect is the sweet spot of
networking. If you want more information about networking, we have a lot of it on
our website, so please visit us at managementconsulted.com