How do titles work in RE if you are coming from another industry?
Say you go from IB to RE into an associate acquisitions role. You don't have any RE experience, so if you how many years would it take to move up? Would it be more than a person that has 2-3 years as an analyst?
How does changing firms work if you only had 1-2 years as an associate? What if you are looking to move up to VP, is that possible when the YOE range anywhere from 6-10 years required?
RE is varied and there's no industry standard. Generally, VP is considered a "partner" level role, meaning you're sharing some of the LTI/Incentive pool. I've also seen VPs with no promote sharing. Now, you only get to share that promote if you're bringing something to the table and really add value to the firm (ie. network of brokers, investors, etc..). Your financial modeling or PPT skills (assuming coming from IB) doesn't mean much.
So title really varies. To answer your question, is it possible to be a VP coming from IB with no RE experience/network, yea sure. Is it possible to share promotes with other VPs/Partners at the firm - unlikely right out of the gate as you're not adding any values nor bringing anything to the table. How fast you're moving to VP really depends on how well you do in your years as the RE associate. Once you demonstrate you're able to take a deal from start to close by yourself, that VP / promote sharing title is totally on the table. Could be 1-2 years, could be 5-7. Really depends on your exposure/abilities.
Just remember RE pays/titles are all over the place. I'm sure I'm speaking for most in this industry, that we're here to eventually get into that LTI/Promote pot, not so much about titles...
Titles are a joke in RE. An analyst can have 3 years of experience and a associate or senior associate can also have 3 years of experience. But their pay can be the same, go figure. Also, a pro tip, on linkledn if you put "Industrial Acquisitions at Nuveen", "Debt Asset Management at Metlife" or "Originations at Capital One", who besides the people you work with will know whether you are a analyst, associate or VP? You can put whatever you want (within reason of course) on your resume when you apply for jobs. Going back to my analyst/senior associate point, if you put senior associate on your resume, you can apply for a VP role but with a analyst title it will look odd even though the experience might be the same.
To your Linkedin title strategy.... this is probably fine for the "headline" but if you do that in the official title spot linked to your firm you could easily limit your visibility and likelihood of being tagged as prospect by headhunter firms. They primarily scan linkedin and if you don't have your actual title, you could get missed in their search.
Fair. In my view it is supposed to be a temporary thing. For example, a senior analyst on paper is applying for a VP gig. He is a senior analyst as his shops dont have an associate title but he has 5 years of experience. I would say put senior associate instead of senior analyst on your resume, keep your linkedin profile generic as I noted and apply for the VP gig. Nobody will think its odd for a "senior associate" with 5 years of experience to interview for a VP gig. Once you get the VP gig, change your linkedin title to now say VP at XXX. Many reasons why people keep their linkedin titles generic on Linkedin but the above example is one of the more common ones.
I see where you are coming from in that example, but if the firm is decently large and that title structure is known, I'd still edge on putting it. TBH, no real idea if head hunters will search just for "associate" or do "associate/analyst" or whatever in your setup of looking for VP with 5 total YOE. Seems they would/should be aware of that title confusion. I know from personal experience they do this with the whole "VP/Director" issue, but what I was directly told by a HH (to note, one dealing in more senior type roles than analyst or associate would be considered tbh), that they use LinkedIn and screen heavily by total YOE and years at the current firm and title/role (i.e. someone who hasn't been promoted at same firm for awhile is more likely to be "gettable" than someone just promoted or who has moved). So, this person advised I keep the dates and titles very accurate so their searches work best. I got the impression this was standard practice at these firms (apparently they buy some special, expensive version of LinkedIn for HHers and recruiters that allows for these type of searches easily).
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