Consulting networking, at the start, is email. It is not a 20-minute coffee chat, not an info session, and not the last five minutes of a case. Those are later products. This page is how you build a list, send notes that get replies, log the thread, and only then book time. Copy-ready wording lives in networking email templates and follow-up templates. Use those when you are staring at a blank draft. Use this page to decide who, when, and what the email is for.
What networking is for (and what it is not)
A good networking program produces three assets: information (what the office actually staffs), proof you can write like an adult, and — sometimes — a referral after a human has a reason to vouch. It does not produce an offer. MBB still runs resume, test, and interviews; how to get into MBB is explicit that a referral mainly helps the resume screen, not the case.
If you skip email and only “network” at recruiting events, you will meet five people once and remember none of them. If you skip email and jump to coffee chats, you will waste 20 minutes of someone who never agreed to meet you.
Build a list before you write a sentence
Target 20–40 people per firm you would actually join, not 200 strangers. Order of yield:
- Alumni of your school or program at the office you want.
- People you met at a campus session (you already have a hook).
- Consultants in a practice that matches your internships.
- Cold office generalists with zero overlap — last, and with lower reply expectations.
For each row store: name, office, practice, hook (school, event, mutual, paper they wrote), date last contacted, reply, next action. If you cannot state the hook in five words, you are not ready to email.
Warm outreach often sees reply rates in a 20–40% band in career-office guidance; truly cold notes can sit in low single digits. Those ranges are why volume and personalization both matter — not blast, not one perfect letter to a partner.
The email’s only job
The first email earns a small yes: 20 minutes, a written answer to one question, or permission to follow up after an event. It does not attach a resume unless they asked. It does not ask for a referral. It does not tell your life story.
Five parts, under ~125 words: hook, one-line who you are, why this person (office, practice, path), one clear ask, easy out. Subject lines that name the school or event outperform “Networking request.”
Send from a professional address. LinkedIn notes have a character cap — same logic, shorter. Full templates: email templates.
Cadence, not campaigns
- First note.
- If silence: one nudge after about 5–7 business days, shorter than the original.
- Optional second nudge around two weeks, then stop.
- If they reply “happy to chat”: move to scheduling. That conversation is the coffee chat guide.
- Thank-you within a day of any call. Follow-up copy: follow-up templates.
Do not run a three-email drip that sounds like software. Consultants can smell a sequence.
Ask for a referral only when four things are true: application is ready, they have heard you think, you can name the role and office, and the sentence includes an easy no. Before that, you are asking a stranger to stake their name on a PDF they have not seen.
How networking ties to recruiting time
Start threads weeks to months before the window you care about. A late-summer undergrad MBB close (typical pattern — confirm on the deadlines page) is not when you begin alumni search.
MBA recruiting compresses; the MBA timeline assumes coffee chats before August applications, which means emails in the summer.
Non-target and low-GPA candidates need this pipeline more, not as a slogan — as the way a human reads the resume. Pair with low GPA evidence, not instead of it.
Common email failures
The job ask. “Would you refer me?” in email one.
The novel. Four paragraphs of why consulting.
The fake hook. “I admire your journey” with no journey named.
The mass CC. Three consultants, one note.
The wrong owner. Recruiters get process questions. Consultants get work and office questions. Do not ask a partner how to format the portal.
No log. Double-emailing the same person, or losing the one who said “write me next month.”
After they say yes
The thread has done its job. Prepare for 20 minutes like a meeting: two or three real questions, a clock, a specific thank-you. Do not use coffee-chat time to read your resume aloud. Do not treat the chat as an interview Q&A. Different rooms.
When a referral happens, the resume that gets forwarded must already be staffable. Grade it before you spend the favor.
Networking is a pipeline. Email is the pipe. Everything else is a meeting you have not earned yet.
Sources
- University career offices (Chicago, Dartmouth, Berkeley, Yale) on informational-interview outreach length and tone
- CoachNed, Best consulting networking email templates
- CoachNed, How to get into MBB (referral effect on the screen, not the case)