Recruiting guide

Investment banking recruiting tracker — what to look for

A recruiting tracker is only as good as the fields it forces you to fill in. Here's what a real one needs, and where a DIY spreadsheet stops being enough.

An investment banking recruiting tracker needs, at minimum, a contact record (name, firm, group, connection type), an outreach status (not contacted, drafted, sent, replied, chat scheduled, chat done), a follow-up date, and space for notes from any conversation you've had. Everything else — reminders, email drafting, contact discovery — is what separates a basic spreadsheet from a system that actually keeps you on top of 30-50+ contacts without daily manual upkeep.

The core fields

  • Contact record — name, firm, group, LinkedIn/email, how you're connected.
  • Status — a small fixed set of stages you can scan at a glance.
  • Last touch + next action date — the two fields that actually drive follow-up behavior.
  • Notes — anything from a call or email worth remembering for the next touchpoint. See what's actually worth writing down.

DIY spreadsheet vs. purpose-built tool

A spreadsheet is free and works for a small list. What it can't do: surface contact details automatically (you still have to find each person and their email yourself), draft outreach (you're writing every email from scratch or a static template), or remind you when a follow-up is due (you have to remember to check). A purpose-built tracker folds contact discovery, drafting, and reminders into the same status field you're already updating — the tracking stops being a separate chore from the recruiting itself. Side-by-side breakdowns: vs. Excel and vs. Notion.

How to set one up

Whichever you use, set it up once with the fields above before you start adding contacts — retrofitting fields onto 40 existing rows is exactly the kind of tedious cleanup that causes people to abandon a spreadsheet in the first place. If you're using MarketIQ, the pipeline view (drafted / sent / replied / coffee chat scheduled) and follow-up reminders are built in from account creation, so there's no setup step at all.

ChatGPT built the target list.

Manage the pipeline in MarketIQ — drafted, sent, replied, coffee chat scheduled — instead of a spreadsheet tab you'll lose by next week.

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Frequently asked questions

How many contacts before I actually need a real tracker?

Most students can manage networking from memory or a simple list up to about 15 contacts. Past 20-30, missed follow-ups become common without a system that tracks status and due dates for you.

Is a spreadsheet good enough to start with?

Yes, for a short list early in recruiting. The limits show up as the list grows: no reminders, no contact discovery, and manual status updates that get skipped when things get busy.

What's the minimum viable tracker?

A single table with contact info, a status field (not contacted / drafted / sent / replied / chat scheduled), a next-action date, and a notes column. Anything less and you'll lose track of who needs a follow-up.

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