I am in the middle of updating my resume and sending to real estate recruiting firms as well as direct job postings.
I am debating whether to leave my last "paying job" off of my resume due to the way the working relationship ended.
My career progression:
2 years of general corporate finance within the banking industry
2 years as a credit analyst for a bank's construction lending group
3 years as a senior acquisitions analyst for a large well known owner operator
1 year working for a well known developer ($100+MM projects)
5 years as an Asst VP of Acquisitions for a $5B AUM investment manager
18 months as Director of Acquisitions for a high net worth family office
The position with the family office ended about a year ago due to the fact that I voiced concern over how they conducted business (submitting offers on properties they had zero intention of buying, retrading just for the fuck of it, generally being shitty people), I was legitimately concerned that my involvement in their antics would compromise my relationships with brokers, etc. After retrading a deal for the fifth or sixth time, I finally sat down with the partners and told them if they wanted to continue playing those types of games, then I was not the right person for the job. I gave them 2 weeks notice, they wanted me to stay longer to help out with some refinancings they were in the middle of, I politely told them sorry, two weeks was my max. The following day, they asked me to clean out my desk and leave.
Obviously, I cannot use this family office for any sort of reference. I have no issue explaining the situation to a recruiter or interviewer, as it was a legitimate concern and the company itself does have a bit of a reputation around town as being not the greatest. The one main reason I want to keep it on my resume is that it shows I held a director role. In the past year, I have been keeping busy doing consulting work, brokering a few deals here and there, and investing in deals with a small group of local investors that I have a relationship with from years prior. If I keep the family office position off my resume, I would simply list my own company in the "gap".
I'm just wondering if it makes more sense to simply delist my last job so as to not have to explain why I was let go, or keep it on my resume and explain it. Some companies may give more weight to the fact that I served as a Director before, so I'm not sure which way to lean.
Thoughts?
My 2 cents, since you are a little above me career-wise is the following. You are very ethical, you have a strong sense of values and are not afraid to voice your opinion. I think your leaving the position in your resume is a very honest thing to do. Now I sense that you believe it would be a hindrance in your job search and you would not be wrong. Unfortunately in this world HR recruiters and hiring managers are very quick to weed out a resume that has some flaw. I think ultimately it will benefit you to keep the director position as the right hiring manager will recognize why you quit and see it as a strength instead of a flaw or "story". The downside to this is you might miss out on jobs because a good amount of people just don't care how you couch your experience there. They will see it as a poor reflection of you unfortunately.
In summation, it might take you longer to find a home, but when you do it will be a much better fit and you will be happier there.
I'd leave it on there. I think it proves you have integrity and good business values. Tthere are plenty of things we do at my firm that I disagree with, but none involve re-trading (unless for a legitimate reason, Phase I or II comes up dirty, etc.), or submitting offers just for the hell of it. those are two pretty shitty things to do. In addition, I think it's widely understood that in this industry personal reputation is extremely important. I know a handful of guys who have left a firm with a questionable reputation, and I think everyone understood why. they got offers relatively quickly afterwards....
can someone clarify what retrading is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-trade
some firms lob in offers they know they'll be priced out of just so brokers know they are active, but if they are offering winning bids w/o planning to close then that's pretty bad
I'd say leave it on, if it was alot shorter time period I'd pull it. People have always had conflicts or cultural fits that made it so they had to leave positions.
Wow, we may have worked for the same family office! Your story sounds very similar to one of my old jobs. When everyone else was underwriting value add leveraged IRRs in the high teens, my former group would underwrite to mid 20s. It was beyond asinine. Naturally, every offer I wrote was at least 10-15% below the brokers pricing guidance. I think in my two years with the family office, we actually made it past the first round of bidding 3 or 4 times. And one time, we actually were awarded the deal, but a few days later, the two douchebag owners of the company decided that they no longer liked the deal, and I was forced to make the call to CBRE broker (one of the top apartment brokers nationwide) to tell him we were rescinding our offer.
Long story short, I mentally checked out the last 2-3 months I was there. Kinda like the guy from Office Space. Showed up to work late, left early, took 2 hour lunches everyday (on the company AMEX card, of course), wore jeans and tennis shoes to work most days, basically stopped giving a fuck. Some days I showed up in flip flops.
Eventually, they sat me down and told me I was being "let go". Offered me a two weeks pay severance package in exchange for signing a no disclosure agreement regarding the company and making any negative public statements about them. I told them they could keep the 2 weeks pay. Walked out of the office with the contents of my desk, plus the company's laptop and 2 iPads.
I left the company on my resume, explained the situation to recruiters and people I was interviewing with, and still managed to receive offers for other jobs (granted, I never indicated I was fired, I spun it so that I had resigned and then the company decided to expedite my release by asking me to leave that day.
There are some pretty shitty firms out there.
Dude, I get that the management was crazy, but you kind of come off like the asshole on this one....
Wasn't trying to come across as a victim, either. I admit that I was deliberately going out of my way to express my disdain for the job. The point I was making was that there are a lot of shitty firms out there and I happened to work for one.
Are you serious?! And they let you do that? Pretty sure this is theft.
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