Hi guys,
As my career path so far has been quite unconventional and spread across a few different areas, I thought my best contribution could be in regards to job searching, persistence and 'crafting a story'.
Background: For personal reasons and due to hanging out with the wrong crowd I didn't take high school very seriously and ended up having to drop out in my final year (more-so through lack of effort than ability). After a few months of feeling sorry for myself I took on a few irrelevant jobs still living at home so I could go travelling. I went to 'find myself' in South America for around half a year (I happened to 'miss' a flight home so I had to extend my the trip as one does) volunteering, learning Spanish and growing-up to some extent as well as generally spending some of the best moments of my life.
I came back and started doing some admin work (SA is cheap, but not that cheap when you're young and dumb - had racked up a bit of a bill) for a family-office type RE shop in Europe where I grew up but obviously quickly realised that my lack of formal education was going to stop me progressing. My issue at the time was that my peers were two years ahead of me and my confidence in my studying ability was pretty low. With the incredible help and encouragement of a few people that I am eternally thankful to, I signed up to a pretty 'unique' distance study programme and through frankly what seemed like blood, sweat and tears completed my undergraduate programme in Economics whilst working full time, studying evenings and weekends for three long but incredibly rewarding years.
As my interest in both real estate and 'finance' in general developed across those years, I had my eyes on London upon graduation still being in Europe at the time. Unfortunately, I had to keep my job during that whole time as I had to move out for family reasons so any chances of internships were pretty much gone aside just my lack of knowledge and preparation. As a result, attempts at both Banking and Asset Management alike lead nowhere. I figured that by best shot at London/Finance was doing a Masters /Grad school - the advantage here being they are usually a year long in UK/EU aside from MBA's. With a '1st' for my undergraduate and what seemed to be a solid story I applied to what you would consider to two target schools in London, got into both and picked my favourite. From then on:
- Associate (Mid-sized Global AM firm) - Rotational programme (Operations/Finance)
- Assistant Portfolio Manager ( Large Global AM firm) - Global RE Securities- CFA lvl II Candidate - damn COVID
- Next? I would like to move to the direct RE investing.
I'm happy to answer any questions regarding the above or anything else that may be relevant. Apologies, I could not make the background more concise, you get through more than you think in life!
Thanks!
- SkinInTheGame
Given that we have different struggles in life in terms of career path, what is your advice for people like me who is planning to break in the finance industry?
Well, finance is broad so it would firstly be useful for you to define what exactly you are interested in or want to do - if you don't know. You should try and read up as much as you can about your sector of interest and how to get in + career path, WSO is a good place to start and beyond that perhaps try and reach out to your school alumni (if you're studying) or people on LinkedIn (contacts + direct messages) to get more of a feel of what the role entails and if you think it trully fits you.. they + online resources should be able to help you prepare your applications. It is competitive regardless, but particularly for structured hiring if your background is not 'traditional' so equip yourself with perseverance, be tenacious and remember that is a numbers game at this stage. It will probably take many rejections, unanswered emails and a lot of time before even interviewing successfully but this is a marathon not a sprint and practice makes perfect.
Glad you posted this, too many people on WSO seem to think all career/life paths are linear and without twists and turns. More people have stories like yours than everyone realizes (they don't post in on their professional bios or LinkedIn profiles). Keep it up!!!
Thanks! appreciate it
Hi
Did you respond? I got a notification but see no comment
Thanks a lot for doing this. Is it common for people to switch from the public side of RE to the private side (or vice versa)?
I'm an incoming intern in the RE team of an asset manager. What would you do if you were me to prepare so I can maximise my chance of converting to full-time?
My pleasure! From my knowledge it isn't - as despite the overlap in skillset (DD, underwrite etc..) it's a very different business. Public is broadly AM and you're investing in REIT's/REOC's while taking a minority stake across c. 30+ names and is intraday/market driven whereas REPE and co, is a transaction/control lead business (broadly, excluding JV's partnership and co)- more in line with IB and corp PE.
Congrats on the offer! I think from my experience a few things could help; if you haven't met the team, looking at their background / reading up on the fund(s) and strategy as well the holdings (top 10 or so should be public available) / reading up on RE fundamentals and the different asset classes in RE and having an idea of what's interesting at the moment (ex; broadly why retail/office may not seem attractive at the moment vs say industrials/logistics or alternatives like self-storage..) / looking into REIT valuation (NAV, DCF,.. and how it differs from traditional companies as well as understanding as how they structured. I think having an idea of the above would be a good place to start and shows both enthusiasm and should help once you land on the desk.
Hello!
I guess this post is almost a year old, but if you still follow this, I would love to talk more about your viewpoints on the RE market in Europe. Coming from a different background, I got my foot in the door with a quantitative research analyst role in REPE investments. However, thanks to COVID, networking opportunities have been pretty slim and I am not very sure of what else is out there apart from the generic information about roles (AM, FM, PM etc) that I find online.
Hey!
Sure, do you have any questions in particular re- RE market in EU and do you have any initial thoughts yourself?
I'm not that familiar with quant research roles in REPE, is that looking at large data sets and trying infer patterns or causalities or..?
Those are the main roles in REPE; Acquisitions/Disposals / AM and then PM although there can be overlap and some roles will cover all of them or be more siloed depending on firm structure size etc.. what are you interested in doing further down the line?
As I recently got a notification for this old post, I thought that I would mention that after many months of hard work and persistence I have now moved to a top 10 PERE shop (PERE 2021), covering Acquisitions/Portfolio management for separate accounts. The journey is still only at an early stage but the narrative and motivation I already alluded to are more relevant than ever!
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