How to find alumni at a bank on LinkedIn and your alumni directory
Open your school's LinkedIn page, click Alumni, and filter by the bank under where they work; then cross-check the same bank in your school's own alumni directory, which often has emails. Pick analysts and associates who graduated in the last five years, two to four per bank, and write them into one list with group, office, and class year before you send anything.
Updated November 6, 2026. Live data checked against each firm's own careers site 1m ago.
How do you use LinkedIn's alumni tool to find bankers?
Every school has a LinkedIn page with an Alumni tab (the address is linkedin.com/school/your-school/people). It lets you filter everyone who lists your school by where they work, what they do, and where they live. It is free and works on a basic account.
Type the bank's name into the Where they work filter, then narrow with What they do set to Finance, and Where they live set to the city of the office you want. You now have a list of people who share your school and sit at that bank, which is the warmest cold list you will ever get.
- Go to your school's LinkedIn page and open the Alumni tab.
- Set the start and end years so you only see people who graduated in the last five or six years.
- Under Where they work, type the bank's name and pick it from the list.
- Under Where they live, pick the office city, such as New York or San Francisco.
- Open each profile and note the title, group, office, and graduation year.
- Keep analysts and associates; park vice presidents and above for later.
What search terms find the right people when the alumni tool misses them?
The alumni tool only finds people who list your school. For everyone else, use LinkedIn's main people search with the bank as Current company and a title keyword. Titles at banks are standard, so a short list of words covers most of them.
Search group names too. Bankers often write their group in the headline, so searching the bank plus a group finds the person who can tell you about that exact team.
- Investment Banking Analyst, and Investment Banking Associate
- Summer Analyst, for interns from last summer who remember the process best
- Group words: M&A, Restructuring, Leveraged Finance, TMT, Healthcare, Industrials, Financial Sponsors
- Your club's name or your fraternity or sorority, which catches people who left your school's name off
- Your hometown or high school, a second shared tie when the school is not one
What does your school's alumni directory add?
Your school's own directory, usually run by the alumni office or career center behind your student login, is the second source and often the better one. Alumni in it opted in to hear from students, and many list a work email, which saves you guessing the format.
Search it by employer and industry, and check any mentor or career advisor flag: those people volunteered for exactly this conversation. Also ask your finance club for its list of alumni who have taken calls before. A name that has said yes to a student before is the best name on your list.
Who on the list should you write to first?
Write first to analysts who graduated in the last one to three years. They recruited recently, they remember being in your seat, and they are the people a bank asks about which students seemed sharp. Associates who started as analysts are next.
Spread your notes across groups, not inside one. Two analysts in the same team comparing identical emails looks careless. Start with the banks you most want, which are the ones in the table below, and check where each stands right now so your first notes go out months before it opens.
Goldman SachsOpen1 open now
J.P. MorganWatchingEvercoreOpen3 open now
Centerview PartnersExpectedExpected early JanuaryMoelis & CompanyOpen3 open now
How should you keep the list?
One row per person: name, bank, group, office, class year, how you found them, date of first note, date of follow-up, call date, and one line of what you learned. Without this, by week three you will forget who you wrote to and email someone twice.
Build the list for all your target banks in one sitting, then send in waves of five to ten notes a week. The contacts page on Waddle Street does this for you and tells you when a follow-up is due.
- Name, title, group, office
- Class year and how you found them (LinkedIn alumni, directory, club, referral)
- Date of first note, date of the one follow-up
- Date of the call and the one thing you learned
- Who they suggested you talk to next
Questions students ask
- Do I need LinkedIn Premium to find alumni?
- No. The Alumni tab on your school's page and the basic people search are free. Premium adds more profile views and InMail, but email to a work address works better than InMail anyway.
- Should I send a LinkedIn connection request or an email?
- Email first. Bankers read work email all day and rarely check LinkedIn messages. A connection request with a short note is fine as a second channel, or when you cannot confirm an address.
- How many alumni should I find per bank?
- Find more than you need, maybe six to ten, then write to two to four. That leaves room to widen the list later if the first notes get no reply.
- Can I use a tool to scrape LinkedIn for me?
- No. Automated scraping and bulk connection requests break LinkedIn's terms and can get your account restricted. Reading a page you have open and copying names into your own notes is fine.
- What if nobody from my school works at a bank I want?
- Use the main people search with the bank and a title, and look for any second tie: your club, hometown, high school, or a past employer. A specific question carries the note when there is no shared school.