4 Rookie Networking Call Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

April 20, 2025

I had to do 78 networking calls sophomore year to get my “foot in the door” at the top banks in NYC.

The midwest non-target on my resume carried no weight, so I needed referrals to land interviews.

I sounded like a fake, awkward robot on the first 20 calls…

But figured out how to make genuine personal connections with strangers on the phone by the end.

As president of our school’s academy, I did hundreds of mock calls with freshmen about to enter recruitment.

Like me, most fell victim to common mistakes like over-preparing questions and not setting an agenda.

Every call is a personality test to see if they could stand spending 80 hr/wk at the desk next to you.

Here was my personal approach to each call that helped me land referrals like clock work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. MISTAKE 1 - AWKWARD SMALL TALK

II. MISTAKE 2 - FAILING TO SET AGENDA

III. MISTAKE 3 - ROBOTIC QUESTIONS

IV. MISTAKE 4 - POOR ETIQUETTE

MISTAKE 1 - AWKWARD SMALL TALK

My senior mentor (who placed bulge bracket NYC) gave me one rule of thumb to live by -

The more “non-finance” talk, the better.

Bankers will like you 10x more if you find a shared interest and talk about that before business stuff.

They do dozens of calls and won’t remember you if you don’t make a personal connection.

My strategy was to reverse engineer a shared interest topic by doing research before the call.

You just have to be careful to bring it up in a way that doesn’t make you sound like a stalker.

Here are three of the “personal connection” angles I used and how I brought each up during small talk.

ANGLE 1 - COLLEGE ATHLETE

  • RESEARCH - I was a forward on our college hockey team & played high-level AAA as a kid. I’d dig through “activities” sections next to each banker’s college & high school on their LinkedIn to find (a) Hockey Players (College / Before), or (b) Other College Athletes

  • HOW I BROUGHT IT UP - When asked “How are you doing today?” in the first 30sec, I’d say something like “…doing pretty great!…actually kind of exhausted though…just got back from hockey practice and we had a conditioning skate this morning…” or “…been a pretty fantastic start to the week!…mostly just been settling in after a long hockey road trip this past weekend…”

ANGLE 2 - STUDY ABROAD

  • RESEARCH - Since I was in the process of deciding where I wanted to study abroad - I looked for bankers that had study abroad in their LinkedIn education section

  • HOW I BROUGHT IT UP - Again when asked “How are you?” - would say “…really can’t complain…actually just got back from a meeting with my advisor to talk about study abroad and I keep going back and forth between a few options…but I have some time to decide so I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually…”

ANGLE 3 - HOMETOWN / STATE

  • RESEARCH - Found bankers that grew up / went to college / high school in same state or small town I grew up in

  • HOW I BROUGHT IT UP - “…been a pretty great week so far…really looking forward to this weekend too because I’m driving home to see my family for Easter…honestly really lucky I’m such a short drive away so I can bounce home real quick on weekends like this…”

They’d then typically take that bait and bring up how they relate to whatever I mentioned…

Which would then lead to us spending the next 25min going down a rabbit hole on the subject.

Establishing that common interest builds trust and is the number one factor that got me referrals.

MISTAKE 2 - FAILING TO SET AGENDA

It’s your responsibility to formally state an agenda as soon as the small talk dies down.

Basically outlining how you want to structure the call and asking if that works for them.

I repeated these four sentences on all 78 of my calls.

SENTENCE 1) - “Yea so Jason I just wanted to say thank you again for taking the time to chat today…really appreciate you being so generous with your time especially given how busy you guys have been like you mentioned earlier…”

SENTENCE 2) - “…so I know I sent over my resume in that initial email, but what I was thinking for this call is that I could start off by giving a brief overview of my background…”

SENTENCE 3) - “…and then after that I’d love to hear a little bit more about you and your background and what brought you to where you are today at Bank of America if that sounds good to you…”

SENTENCE 4) - “…and then I just had some questions as well I’d love to ask if possible…”

They’ll then say “Yep…works for me…”

And from there you just dive into your elevator pitch.

Here’s how I structured each part of that.

PART 1) CONTEXT - First sentence stated name, year in school, major & college. Then couple sentences on hometown / background - mentioning how hockey took up most of my time outside school (setting stage for later) & how I commuted far to play AAA to be seen by college scouts

PART 2) BUSINESS / FINANCE SPARK - Explained how first got interested in business since dad had his own small business. Led me to choose college based on both hockey and strong business program. College was also close to home and dad was alumni making choice easy

PART 3) GROWING INTEREST - Explored all realms of business by joining tons extracurriculars first semester. Most interested by intro to M&A org. Conversation with older cousin who did two years banking before private equity to learn about career path. Found lots parallels between sport fell in love with from young age and banking (fast pace, competitive). Figured career would be perfect fit for me. Led me to pursue investment banking academy on campus & enroll in case competitions

PART 4) WHY YOU’RE HERE TODAY - Explain how all that has brought me here and I’m focused on NYC & elite boutique / middle market for recruitment due to small town values. Had convos with a few of that banker’s peers who recommended reaching out to them next. Excited to hear perspective on tech group & what transition has been like with their recent promotion to associate

MISTAKE 3 - ROBOTIC QUESTIONS

Over-preparing questions makes you sound super artificial and kills the flow of the conversation.

I can’t tell you how many kids would just read off a laundry list on those mock calls.

Yes - you still need to prepare and do research to come up with a few good discussion points...

But you need to let those topics come up naturally and have it be a smooth, logical transition.

The “flow” of conversation should be structured with follow-up questions.

  • INITIAL FOLLOW-UP - Once they finish giving extended background, spend ~30sec with counter response. Mention how you personally relate to something they said / if something specific resonated. Then say how that “brings you into your first question…” about xyz

  • REST OF FOLLOW-UPS - They’ll have a long-winded response to your question. Don’t interrupt. Once they finish, do same ~30sec counter response mentioning personal relation / detail that resonated. Tie that into it sparking your curiosity in a related subject. Ask open-ended follow-up on related subject. Make it somewhat of a run-on question

Here’s an example of a logical transition - “...so I guess along with that…I was also curious to hear more about the placement process and what that specifically looked like for you at Bank of America...I know you briefly mentioned how it was between healthcare & consumer for you and know you ended up in healthcare…so could you maybe expand a bit more on that process and talk about how your group is setup within Bank of America as well with what the typical deal team looks like….and how much interaction you have with the other groups?..."

I prepared around five or six “discussion points / questions” based on their LinkedIn.

I’d have a few “experience” questions and a few “advice” questions.

EXPERIENCE QUESTIONS

  • Why they chose their bank over other options

  • How they ended up in their group

  • Transitions & adapting to each (intern → analyst / analyst → associate / firm → firm / etc)

ADVICE QUESTIONS

  • If also non-target - recruitment challenges they faced & approaches worked best for them

  • If also athlete - ask if they leveraged this during recruitment & if it impacted firm choice

  • If also from small town / midwest - what transition has been like to NYC

MISTAKE 4 - POOR ETIQUETTE

Most kids are too casual and don’t realize every networking call is a “mini-interview”.

There were three main pitfalls I saw over & over again when doing mock calls with freshmen.

PITFALL 1 - AFFIRMATIVES

In-person, it’s polite to nod your head and say things like

“uh-huh” & “hmm, interestingg” 

When another person is talking to show you’re paying attention.

However - this is an absolute NO-NO on the phone.

Bankers find it incredibly annoying.

I had a terrible habit of doing this, so I used the mute button while it was their turn to speak.

PITFALL 2 - PUNCTUALITY

Always call right when the clock strikes the time you said you’d call at.

I watched the second hand on my iPhone clock with the banker’s number already fully typed in and hit dial right as it switched over to the agreed upon minute.

This shows punctuality and attention to detail.

Most bankers probably won’t care but I had a few specifically say they were impressed.

PITFALL 3 - TYPING NOTES

You should mention specific details from the convo in your thank you email to show you were engaged.

But if they hear typing in the background while they’re speaking, it’ll seem very disrespectful.

I took handwritten notes on the same piece of scratch paper that had my prepared discussion points.

Cheers 🥂

- Jack