The IB Coffee Chat Guide: Getting Them, Running Them, Converting Them

In investment banking recruiting, coffee chats are not networking theater; they are functionally part of the interview process. At many banks, internal referrals and positive impressions from these conversations influence who gets first-round invitations, and bankers commonly pass names to recruiting after a strong chat. Candidates who skip networking are competing on resume alone in a process that rarely works that way.

A coffee chat is a 15-to-30-minute conversation, in person or by phone or video, with a banker at a firm you are targeting. The goal is not to extract a job. It is to be memorably competent and likeable, learn things you cannot google, and earn the right to stay in touch. Referrals are a byproduct of doing that well, repeatedly.

Getting the chat: outreach that gets answered

Start with the warmest available paths: alumni from your school, people from your city or previous clubs and employers, and second-degree connections who can introduce you. Alumni respond at meaningfully higher rates than cold contacts because helping students from their school is a norm in the industry. Analysts and associates are the right seniority to start with; they remember recruiting, have the most current view of the group, and are usually the ones asked for names.

The email itself should be short enough to read on a phone between meetings: who you are in one line, the specific connection or reason you are writing to them, a low-pressure ask for 15 to 20 minutes, and flexibility on timing. Attach your resume or do not, opinions differ; a clean one-liner about your background can do the same work with less presumption.

Expect silence often; it is about inboxes, not you. One polite follow-up after roughly a week is standard and frequently the message that gets the reply. After a second silence, move on and try someone else at the firm.

• Subject lines that work: school name plus student plus a specific ask, kept plain
• Three to five sentences maximum; no life story, no essay on the firm
• One clear ask: a brief call at their convenience, with your availability offered
• Personalize one detail per email; mass-blast templates read as mass-blast templates
• Track every contact, date, and outcome; volume without a system collapses fast. WACC Buddy's networking tracker in the Career Kit exists for exactly this.

Running the 20 minutes

You are the host, even though they are the senior party. Come with a plan, drive the conversation politely, and land it on time. Bankers notice candidates who run a tight meeting because running tight meetings is part of the job.

The biggest single mistake is turning the chat into a mock interview of them, firing generic questions off a list. The second biggest is the opposite: showing up with nothing and hoping charm carries it. The conversation should feel like genuine curiosity with structure underneath.

1. 01Minutes 0 to 2: brief thanks, one or two lines of natural small talk, then offer a 30-second version of who you are so they have context. Short; this is not the resume walkthrough.
2. 02Minutes 2 to 8: their story. Ask how they got to the firm and what their path looked like. People enjoy this, it relaxes the conversation, and their answer generates your follow-up questions.
3. 03Minutes 8 to 15: targeted questions you actually care about, ideally ones only an insider can answer: how the group staffs, what separates strong juniors, how their team differs from peers, what surprised them. Two or three good threads beat eight shallow ones.
4. 04Minutes 15 to 18: make your interest concrete. Say plainly that the firm is a top choice and, if true, that you are applying this cycle. Ask what they would suggest you do to position well, and whether there is anyone else on the team they would recommend you speak with.
5. 05Minutes 18 to 20: close on time, on your initiative. Thank them, confirm you will follow up, and let them get back to work. Ending early and crisp is a feature.

What to know before you dial

Ten minutes of preparation separates a good chat from a wasted one. Know their title, group, and background from their public profile, know the basics of the firm and what the group does, and have your own 30-second intro and a light version of why banking ready, because many bankers will flip the conversation and start asking you questions. Treat every coffee chat as a soft interview: the behavioral questions can arrive without warning, and being casually sharp on them is the best impression you can leave.

The follow-up

Send a thank-you email within 24 hours: two or three sentences, referencing one specific thing from the conversation and any action you committed to. If they suggested a person or a resource, act on it and say so; visible follow-through is the single strongest signal in networking.

Then keep the thread alive at low frequency. A short update every four to eight weeks when something real happens, an application submitted, an offer for a first round, a project relevant to something they said, keeps you present without becoming a chore. When you apply to their firm, tell them the same day; that message is often what triggers the internal flag to recruiting.

Converting chats into referrals

Almost never ask directly for a referral in the first conversation; it converts a favor freely given into a demand, and most bankers will offer on their own if the chat went well. The convertible moment is the positioning question: asking what you should do to be competitive, and whether they would suggest anyone else to talk to, gives them a natural opening to say send me your resume, I will pass it along.

If several chats at one bank have gone well and applications are open, a soft direct version becomes acceptable with your strongest contact: mentioning that you have applied and asking if they have any advice on the process, or whether they would be comfortable flagging your application. Comfortable is the operative word; it gives them a graceful exit, which paradoxically makes a yes more likely. And remember the compounding rule: each chat should end with one new name, because three warm contacts inside a group is what an actual referral network looks like.

Mistakes that burn contacts

Networking failures are rarely dramatic; they are small acts of carelessness that mark you as a risk to vouch for.

• Asking for a job or referral in the first email or first call
• Being visibly unprepared: not knowing their group or what the firm does
• Letting the chat run long or waiting for them to end it
• Asking questions answered on the firm's website
• Never following up, or following up only when you need something
• Getting names of their colleagues and then going silent
• Anything that suggests the conversation is one of forty identical ones you ran that week, even if it is

FAQ