Booth Alumni Network for Job Referrals
Chicago Booth is consistently ranked #1 for finance and economics and has exceptional placement at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Google, and top hedge funds. If you attended Booth, your alumni network is particularly powerful in finance and consulting.
Find Booth Alumni at Your Target CompaniesWhere Booth Alumni Work
Booth alumni are renowned for analytical depth and intellectual rigor. The school's Chicago location and finance focus means exceptional placement at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, and top hedge funds and private equity firms. Booth also has strong placement in tech through its Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and active recruiting by Google and Amazon.
Companies Booth alumni commonly join
How to Use Your Booth Alumni Network for Job Referrals
- Search by company, not by person: Instead of thinking "who do I know at McKinsey?", flip it: search for McKinsey employees who attended University of Chicago Booth School of Business. FindWarmIntros does this automatically — enter your school and target company to surface alumni connections you didn't know you had.
- Lead with the school connection: Open every message with "I'm a Booth alum." The shared identity is your strongest opener — it signals mutual context and dramatically improves response rates.
- Be specific about your background and theirs: Show that you know the school. Mention your program, concentration, or a professor by name. Generic messages get filtered out; specificity signals authenticity.
- Ask for a 15-minute call, not a referral: The goal of the first message is a conversation. Learn about their experience. The referral comes naturally after a real call.
- Follow up promptly: After a good call, send a thank-you the same day and ask directly: "Would you be open to referring me for [Role] at [Company]?" Include your resume and the specific job link.
Tips for Booth Alumni Outreach
Finance and quant firms are Booth's strongest alumni channels
Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Balyasny, and Two Sigma all have dense Booth alumni populations. For candidates targeting finance roles, the Booth connection carries significant weight — the school's reputation for producing rigorous analysts is well-known across Wall Street and Chicago trading firms.
Booth alumni share a distinct intellectual culture
The Chicago economics tradition gives Booth alumni a shared intellectual identity. References to Nobel laureates on the faculty, the Fama-French model, or the free-market school of thought create immediate recognition. Using this shared intellectual language in outreach signals that you are a genuine Booth alum, not a generic message-sender.
The Booth alumni network is especially active in Chicago and New York
Booth has the most active alumni network in Chicago by a large margin, and a strong presence in New York's finance community. Local Booth alumni events are frequent and well-attended. For candidates in either city, local Booth events are a natural entry point to building warm relationships before making referral requests.
Frequently Asked Questions
Find Booth Alumni by Company
These pages show you exactly which Booth alumni work at each company and give you personalised outreach templates to reach them: