Would just like to preface this thread by saying thank you for all of the great advice ive gathered from this forum over the past year or so, lots of smart people here willing to go out of their way and I know im not alone in saying its extremely useful stuff.
To give you a background, I graduated in may 2015 from a non-target midwest university with a decent gpa (3.75) with degrees in finance and economics. I began my search for investment banking positions rather late, and I attempted to reach out to industry contacts in private placement groups i had through my internship where I was a part of a group who invested in private placement debt issuances. This is sort of a niche area, as ive come to find out, and the contacts i did make weren't able to help me out much at the time. I have reached out to many others, and I've established good relationships with three main contacts that have helped me the most. two are associates at MM banks and one was at a MM and moved on to a hedge fun after making VP. They all have great connections and have been very willing to help, but unfortunately I wasnt able to secure any off-cycle interviews on a short notice after graduation.
continuing, I ended up interviewing for other positions under the impression that a large gap on my resume would be more detrimental than my non-target background. so, i took a position at an investment fund that is technically MO, but luckily we're small enough now that i have some access to front office VPs and MDs.
I wanted to find out if people had any advice on when to start reaching out to my contacts i have established. I've been at my current job for 2 months, so im not sure if that will work against me when it comes to meeting with and calling these contacts to keep in touch. Ive been updating them about my current move to the new position, but would it be too soon to reach out now to set up chats/drinks/coffee? When i do get to speak with them, should i bring up the fact that i'm trying to lateral right away or is that better left to a follow up meeting at like the 6 month mark of my current position? I'm crafting my story now, "why IB", "what can you do for me and why should i hire you", technicals and modelling, etc, but any other advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again for all the help.