Is the NYC Job Market That Bad
Hi All - I am trying to keep this brief but basically, I left RE (dev/acquisitions) for a more generalist fundraising role a little over a year ago and it is quite literally sucking the life out of me. I have been actively searching for a new job since the beginning of the year (7-8 months). I currently live in NYC and am only targeting RE investment roles in the city. I have made it deep into multiple processes but ultimately have not been able to land another opportunity and have felt this job search has been so much more drawn out and demoralizing compared to any other point of my career.
Is it just me? Is it just the city in general? The career boomerang is definitely a hurdle but this feels extraordinary.
Starting to really worry I'm going to start having to expand to other cities.
Any thoughts, advice, etc. are appreciated, thank you.
A lot of qualified people (some super qualified) fighting for every job and there’s only 5-7 of them that are live at any given time. It’s bad.
Extremely bad. Complete opposite of ‘21 and ‘22. It’s a combo of a lot of qualified candidates, firms starting searches then choosing not to hire at all, ghosting, and a lot of firms are offering mediocre/subpar package when it comes to compensation and office flexibility.
How is the generalist fundraising role sucking the life out of you? Long hours? Or just boring work?
Thinking of leaving my RE job (not nyc so don’t encourage me to do it)
Don't feel too down, you're not alone in this. As others have said, there's a ton of qualified candidates for every role and just not that many openings given the market. Focusing on specific industries makes it even tougher, as you are rather limited on what you can apply for. Personally took me almost a year of recruiting to finally land an offer after transitioning from my old role, and that was with me casting a really wide net across multiple industries (FP&A, strategic finance, PE, credit, etc.). Hang in there and keep grinding, you'll get there eventually. Markets are cyclical as well so given enough time eventually things will pick up.
Hi, curious which function did you eventually choose to get into? Any thoughts on FP&A and strategic finance?
Hey, I eventually ended up working for one of the CRA (credit rating agencies) on their structured finance team. Took a massive pay cut and a title cut in the process since my specific team is rather niche, but got extremely good WLB in return.
I actually had an offer to go into FP&A that paid slightly better, but ultimately went with the CRA because my background has a good chunk of credit (previously in PE and private credit). I also wanted to keep the optionality to potentially go back into a buyside credit role in the future, which was the other reason I took this offer over the FP&A one.
Strategic finance and FP&A are both solid fields, I can speak more to the FP&A side – the skillset you develop there is very useful and highly transferable, and corporate finance jobs are much more common than the typical buyside or sellside jobs all the students on WSO chase, and this is in much higher demand even in markets that aren't so great. And if you're coming from an IB background you can usually recruit directly into SFA (senior financial analyst) or even Manager level roles. Longer-term to you develop the ability to potentially own your own P&L and become CFO given enough time, and while you won't be making crazy banking/PE money the income is still pretty solid especially at more senior levels and WLB is much better.
The job can be a bit repetitive at the junior levels since you're primarily just working with Excel spreadsheets and forecasting/budgeting for the future and making some slides to present that to senior leadership, but that exposure to senior members of the team can be valuable especially if you're someone with good people and communication skills. And often you'll find that some of these jobs aren't pure FP&A/strategic finance etc., and that some places will have you do a blend of different work across teams.
It is extremely, extremely bad. The process is absolutely terrible and extremely competitive. It's been over a year for a couple of people I know.
I would use the word abhorrent. Your typical analyst role at one of the big shops is getting 2,000+ applicants. This reflects a role that captures recent grads and those with 1-2 YOE. AI isnt taking away jobs from people but its being leveraged to increase the productivity of existing teams and thereby reducing or eliminating the need for analyst roles. I am confident that the role wont exist in 1-2 years. Look up Henry AI, JLL has their internal thing called "Falcon" or something. I've always been a doom and gloomer to my own detriment but this AI thing is different. AI is replacing graphic designers (for example) faster than anyone can come up with regulation to protect people in that industry. Individuals, companies, and i seriously think anyone, cannot forecast out 5-10 years in this current environment. Someone please clarify if I am off base here, but I feel like everyone secretly knows, and wont represent, that current interest rates may be at a low water mark. Everyone has had this false hope for over two years now that they will go down and everything will be cool again.
I just got a role at a MF while passively searching for 1-2 months. It’s not that bad for everyone.
Could you give some more background? Type of role? Employed while searching? If so, where at? Private inbound from recruiter? Cold linkedin App?
I think that would be helpful to the people that are searching right now.
All I can say is I urge new grads to not go into finance. This will get thrown MS but none of these guys who constantly ride for "high finance" on here and tell you how grateful you should be are going to be the ones to offer you a job. They recruited and climbed the ladder in a completely different environment. Things change, and it's time to go with where the puck is going.
Which is?
This guy gets it
In the past, with less experience, I was able to secure 3 job offers after about 2-3 months of somewhat solid effort.
I've been searching for ages. It truly is bad out here now.
Have been looking for corp dev / strategic finance aso gig (can’t do PE I’m too burnt out) for several months but haven’t gotten final rounds for anything decent in NYC. There are so few jobs being posted.
I’m a top bucket IB analyst with almost 2 YOE in a decent group at a BB. This is beyond depressing.
What sort of comp are you targeting?
$140k base + bonus. Highest offer I’ve gotten so far has been $110k base which is not enough in NYC.
Was told by a recruiter that $140k base is going to candidates with 3-4 years of IB experience which I really hope is not the case.
It's interesting that the official statistics (unemployment, job postings) don't look very bad compared to 2017-19, yet people report massive struggles landing good jobs. Not sure what is going on here.
bc the jobs data is nuanced. there is a white collar jobs recession which is hidden away by high vacancies in blue collar work.
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