A commenter and a few emails have come in asking how a person can maximize an informational interview or a simple coffee meet up with a person on Wall Street. With that said here are the basics.
Higher Is Better: This should be relatively obvious, however the higher the person is within the firm the more leverage they have. An informational interview with an investment banking analyst will have much less weight relative to the head of M&A. If you are going to go down the route of informal meet ups you should aim high up the totem pole.
Feed The Ego: Unless you have experience, there is no reason to insult your new contact by telling them you are not interested in their division. Maybe you want to go into Investment Banking or Sales and Trading but for one reason or another you are meeting with the Head of Research (the Head of any division is a multi-millionaire). Assuming you have never worked on the Street, it would be wise to say you’re interested in their division. While the Head of any group can get you an interview in a different space, if you impress him enough he can simply make a phone call and land you an internship in his division, no questions asked.
Sell Yourself: If you have zero experience, a poor GPA and no knowledge of the field you will have no chance in getting a job or making a good impression. You should have some skills or previous experience to help you sell yourself to the person you are meeting. As an example, experience in an accounting internship could be spun as good understanding of financial statements, winning simple case competitions can be spun as understanding the basics of investment banking and of course a strong GPA in all finance courses can be spun again as good financial statement analysis. You can also try to lightly spin any sales experience, if you did a job that required cold calling, you can spin this as good communication skills. Don’t forget to bring a hard copy of your resume.
Ask Smart Questions: If you are meeting the head of research you can ask about coverage universes, if you are meeting the head of investment banking you can ask about product groups they have or impressive deals that have completed. You need to ask questions that get them talking about their experience and how the bank is differentiated. The worst thing you can do here is ask questions about what the job entails as this implies you have not done your research.
Example Questions: Do not use these words verbatim, instead look into the firm and add some specifics so it is clear you’re not giving memorized answers.
1) Can you talk about the most interesting deal you competed in 2013? (Investment Banking). Here you can ask about specific deals, if you are meeting with the head of healthcare banking you should ask about some completed health car deals.
2) How does your group differentiate itself relative to its peers? (general) This works well for boutique firms because they must have a strategy to gain share and grow, how do they plan to do this, see if they have a niche and if so ask about the niche
3) Volume has been light in the financial services industry how does your firm continue to drive trading volumes higher? (Sales and Trading) This is a touchy one but it lets the person know you understand that driving high volume is key, try to find out how they are driving numbers and ask more specifically about that strategy.
4) I see you cover company XXX how do you view XXX impacting the company? (Research) Find an outperform name the analyst covers, ask how a change in market dynamics will impact the particular stock. This lets the analyst know you understand the basics about his coverage and also gets him talking about a company he likes (choose a stock is up year to date).
Closing: Assuming you have done a good job establishing rapport the person should believe 1) you understand the job, 2) you have some skills to bring to the table and 3) you understand the company. At this point you will have to casually ask if the firm has any openings for interns or full time jobs. If the person is impressed, he will likely be open to helping you find a job.
