Coffee chat

A coffee chat is a short, informal conversation with a recruiter, alum, or team member during MBA recruiting. Fifteen to thirty minutes. Coffee optional. The point is a first human screen before on-campus recruiting lists lock.

It is not an interview. Treating it as a monologue about your passion is how you waste it.

How it works

Firms post sign-up sheets or let students email alumni. You ask two questions you could not answer from the website, offer one specific reason you fit a desk, and stop talking. The alum writes a line in a tracker: “worth a look” or “not a fit.”

Volume has diminishing returns. Twelve chats at the same firm can look desperate. Two good ones plus a clean resume book page usually beat twelve.

Example: you have eight minutes with an alum in operations. Asking “what’s the culture?” wastes six. Asking “how does a first-year associate spend the week of a network reset?” gets a real answer and gives you a sentence you can reuse in a first round.

How it differs

An MBA interview is scored by the school. A case interview is scored by the firm. A campus trek is a group visit. The coffee chat is the smallest unit.

Common errors

Reading a script. Asking for a referral in minute two. Scheduling six chats in one afternoon and blending the firms.

Trackers are real. Large firms log who chatted, who asked a lazy culture question, and who followed up with a specific note. One thank-you that cites the conversation beats five chats with no memory. Evening and online students have to book these outside OCR hours; that is a format cost, not a personality flaw.