Here’s my frustration: I’ve had coffee chats where bankers seemed genuinely interested, said great things about their team, painted this rosy picture of culture and growth—and then nothing happened with recruiting. Meanwhile, someone else lands an internship through a chat that felt less warm but moved faster. I’m starting to think there’s a difference between a banker being friendly and a banker actually signaling that their team is ready to hire.
I want to figure out how to read those signals better. Like, what are the actual tells? Is it the questions they ask you back? Something they say about team size or recent departures? The speed of how they move to a next step? I feel like I’m missing a filter that separates genuine hiring interest from just being a nice person doing their job.
Have you all developed a mental checklist for figuring out which conversations are actually worth your time going forward?
Hiring signals in coffee chats typically cluster into three categories: explicit (mentioning open spots or asking about your timeline directly), implicit (diving deep into your technical skills, past projects, or specific deal experience), and structural (moving quickly to introductions, suggesting additional conversations, or asking about your availability for case studies). Research on candidate funnel conversion suggests bankers engaged in genuine hiring ask specific technical questions within the first fifteen minutes and typically follow up within 48 hours. Conversely, informational chats are characterized by broad questions and delayed responses. Track these patterns across your conversations to calibrate your pipeline.
You’re identifying something real that most candidates miss. A banker actively hiring will ask you direct questions about your availability, timeline, and technical readiness—not just swap war stories. They’ll also look for friction points: ‘Do you have finals in summer?’ or ‘Have you done VBA before?’ These aren’t random; they’re screening for logistical fit. Additionally, a hiring banker will usually loop in someone else (an associate, another analyst) or suggest you prep for something specific, like a case. A purely friendly chat ends with ‘great to connect’ and crickets. Best move is to directly ask toward the end: ‘Are you folks planning to bring on summer analysts? If so, what’s the recruiting timeline look like?’ Their answer and hesitation level will tell you everything.
half of them won’t even know if they’re hiring until three weeks before the program starts. the ones asking detailed technical questions, speed-running to a second conversation, or specifically asking when you’re free—those are the ones. everyone else is just being polite while sipping coffee. don’t waste cycles trying to decode niceness.
this is so useful. i never thought to ask directly about their hiring timeline. makes total sense tho—bankers will tell u if they’re actually hiring if u just ask!
I figured this out the hard way. Had a coffee with a director who seemed super invested, asked me lots of questions about my background. got excited. then two weeks later when I followed up, silence. turns out he was just taking informational meetings his managing director asked him to do. another analyst was way more blunt, asked me ‘when can you start?’ and suddenly i was in the recruiting pipeline. lesson: directness beats politeness every time.