MBA Networking Tracker Template

MBA Networking Tracker: [Your name, recruiting season YYYY]

A tracker for MBA recruiting conversations: a contact pipeline with clear stages, a touchpoint log, a follow-up cadence with date formulas, conversion metrics computed from the pipeline, a weekly review routine and privacy rules for the personal data you hold. It is for MBA students networking toward internships and full-time roles, and works for structured and off-cycle tracks. Source basis: research on social ties and job search (Granovetter 1973; Rajkumar et al. 2022) and on gratitude and question-asking in conversations (Grant and Gino 2010; Huang et al. 2017), written in our own words. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example. This is a planning aid, not career advice; all people, firms and numbers in the examples are invented.

Document control

1. Why track networking

Networking in recruiting is structured information gathering: you learn what a job is really like, test whether you fit, and give people who influence hiring a chance to know you. Without a record, students forget who said what, follow up too late or twice, and cannot tell whether their outreach works. A tracker fixes all three. It also turns a vague feeling ("nobody answers") into numbers you can act on: a low reply rate points to the message or the list; a low rate of conversations turning into advocates points to preparation and follow-up.

Research supports breadth with some depth. Acquaintances often carry job information that close friends do not (Granovetter 1973), and a large field experiment found moderately weak ties the most useful for job mobility (Rajkumar et al. 2022). Asking follow-up questions makes conversation partners like you more (Huang et al. 2017), and an expression of thanks makes people more willing to help again (Grant and Gino 2010). The cadence in section 4 puts these findings into routine.

2. Contact pipeline

Stages: Identified, Outreach sent, Replied, Conversation held, Advocate (offered a referral, introduction or internal word), Closed (no reply after two nudges, or not relevant).

3. Touchpoint log

4. Follow-up cadence

A single formula can set the next date from the stage: =IF(G2="Outreach sent",H2+7,IF(G2="Conversation held",H2+30,IF(G2="Advocate",H2+30,""))). A "due" flag: =AND(J2<>"",J2<=TODAY()).

5. Conversion metrics

Add a column with the highest stage reached as a number (1 Identified to 5 Advocate), then count contacts at or above each stage with =COUNTIF(K:K,">="&n). Example: Amara Okafor's pipeline after six weeks.

Interview invitations are listed separately because an invitation can come without an advocate; the share per outreach is a rough yield, not a causal effect of networking.

By employer:

Excel per row: reply rate =C2/B2, conversations per outreach =D2/B2, advocates per conversation =E2/D2. The example suggests the outreach messages work (a reply rate above one half) but that conversations at Firm D rarely turn into advocates: Amara's product questions may be too generic, so she prepares the next two chats with sharper, product-specific questions.

6. Weekly review routine

1. Filter for due dates on or before today and send every due follow-up.
2. Log any touchpoint you forgot to record.
3. Recompute the metrics and compare with last week. Change one thing if a rate falls: the message, the list or the preparation.
4. Check the volume against the hours budget in mba/mba-recruiting-plan.
5. Close contacts who did not answer two nudges. Do not send a third.

7. Privacy and professional conduct

• Record only what you need: name, role, how you met, what you discussed, next step. No personal details they did not offer, no private opinions about people.
• Keep the tracker private. Do not share it, export it to a shared drive or paste it into an AI tool that stores inputs.
• Never forward a contact's message or name them in an application without their permission.
• Respect a no or no reply. Two nudges is the limit.

8. Common mistakes

1. Adding contacts only after they reply, which makes reply rates look perfect and hides the real problem.
2. Sending a long first message; most replies come to short, specific requests.
3. Asking for a referral in the first message.
4. Forgetting the thank-you, or sending a generic one with no specific point.
5. Following up too often, or never after the thank-you.
6. Counting conversations instead of what they produced.
7. Treating advocates as a guarantee; they help you be considered, not hired.
8. Losing the tracker at the end of the season instead of turning it into the alumni plan.

9. Self-test

1. A student sent 30 messages and had 12 conversations. What is the conversations-per-outreach rate, and what is the Excel formula with outreach in B2 and conversations in D2?
2. Why should a contact be added before they reply?
3. What does a high reply rate with a low advocate rate suggest?
4. A chat took place on 2026-11-03. When is the thank-you due and when is the 30-day update?
5. Name two privacy rules for the tracker.

Sources and further reading

• Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360-1380.
• Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., and Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of weak ties. Science, 377(6612), 1304-1310.
• Grant, A. M., and Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 946-955.
• Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., and Gino, F. (2017). It doesn't hurt to ask: question-asking increases liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430-452. Correction published 2025.
• Related templates: mba/mba-recruiting-plan, mba/mba-coffee-chat-notes, mba/mba-alumni-network-plan.

Answer key

1. 12 / 30 = 40.0%; =D2/B2.
2. Otherwise the people who never answered are missing, and the reply rate and conversion rates are overstated.
3. The outreach works but the conversations do not leave a strong impression: improve preparation, questions and follow-up.
4. Thank-you by 2026-11-04 (=H2+1); update on 2026-12-03 (=H2+30).
5. Any two of: record only what you need; keep it private and out of tools that store inputs; never forward or name a contact without permission; respect a no.

Revision history

Standard and licence note

Based on published research on social ties, job search, gratitude and question-asking, cited above. The text, formulas and examples are original and invented; this template is not affiliated with or endorsed by any school or employer. Check your career centre's current guidance on networking and recruiting conduct. Template licence: MIT.