Analyst for top Broker team or Underwriter?

Want to get a quick discussion here. I don’t have these offers but I’m genuinely curious as to what you guys would choose, and think it could help some people on this forum.

Let’s say you have two job offers from the same brokerage company (think HFF\JLL\CBRE) for :

A: One of the top broker teams in the country. Easily top ten more likely top five within their specialty (not retail)

B: Underwriting. You work with a number of teams, and aren’t specific to one team and one specialty.

What would you choose? Would you generalize and take the underwriting position? Or would you specialize with the team?

8 Comments
 

Sounds like we are thinking along the same lines. I think the connections from the broker team would be more abundant than the underwriting group. I was just unsure if specializing in that group could pigeonhole that analyst.

 

The 1st one. If you are at the Firm I think you are at, those Underwriting specialist jobs are typically a way to break in to eventually get onto someone's team. You can skip that step with the options you laid out here. The main thing you would be missing out on is not being on someone's team and potentially joining a team with a better fit.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I'm pretty sure with that distinction you know the firm that I am talking about. I see. I didn't know that people usually use the underwriting jobs to lateral to a broker team. Could you see the interviews being the same for the broker team vs underwriting? Or do you see the broker team using more of a modeling interview?

 

The Brokers team would definitely be more about fit/ Connections to their team.

I have seen people take these underwriting at a particular shop to lateral on Investment Sales teams (Rarely leave to PE) but not typically other types of brokerage because that is who would be using them the most. You will gain good exposure to Brokers, Deals, underwriting there and if you do good work you can pretty much let your work do the talking when you want to move onto a specific team.

But hey I also know of people who stayed in the underwriting/financial consulting side for a long time. They typically end up with pretty big salaries but they don't really feel any deal impact (Bonuses) on their take home pay but also aren't 1099 like brokers so they get retirement benefits ect.

 

Thank you for the overview. This is exactly what I was looking for. It seems as though you can’t go wrong with either job, but making it directly to a broker team is a plus for your network, and skips the step of having to network in from underwriting

 

Here is the breakdown for future job prospects.

Big Broker(I'm guessing C&W) you will be "pigeonholed" but you will interface directly with your counterparts at buy side shops, so when the time comes to switch you will already know people.

HFF/Underwriter - You will be in an analyst pool, but it is a great brand name to have to a lesser extend the same opportunities as above.

 

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