Advice Needed

Hi all,

Looking for some advice, especially from my US guys who are always so helpful on here. Will try and keep this post as short as poss but sorry if it’s long.

Currently an IS Analyst working in London for a major brokerage (think JLL/CBRE). My wife is a US citizen and we’ve started a visa process that will see me move out the the US later this year/early next (depending on when the Trumpster lets me in). Current role focuses on industrial portfolio sales across Europe with a strong credit/NNN focus. Plan is to move out to the US later this year (when the visa lands) and I’ve got no idea where to start with recruiting and networking. Academic background in Economics from a strong UK school and MSRE from an Oxbridge university. Been at this Brokerage for 2ish years and worked on some pretty large deals.

I may have the opportunity to start working for a very small (15-20 people) RE equity placement agent here in London HQd on the west coast, and it sounds like they’d be open to moving me over once my visa clears. Though I do have one or two worries about this.

I’ll drop and bullet point a few questions below to save a wall of text.

1) Generally, are US employers likely to react positively to my background, or will it be a challenge? Keen to roughly know whether I’m starting from zero at most shops.

2) Will the large US brokerage brand name help with recruiting, or would I be silly to turn down an opportunity with a direct route to the US, even if the firm is small? Sounds like much of US recruitment is network driven (less so here), so I may be short on options in either case coming from London.

3) Does anyone have an idea on whether a placement agent role is a good gig? I’m still figuring out what route I want to take in the industry, so strong exit opps are a priority for me and not sure if this will give me that (my understanding is these deals can be large but slow/infrequent).

Appreciate this is a slightly tricky one and that no one will have the exact answers here, but very keen to hear people’s general thoughts from a US perspective. Thanks all as always!