CRE brokerage GPA
I’ve been talking to a lot of the bigger brokerages and have only been asked my GPA once. Do any of you that have experience at the bigger shops know if GPA is commonly asked at the later stages and how much it matters for an analyst position?
Best to keep it as high as possible, but I haven’t really been asked about it either
Marcus & Milichap requires a 4.0 GPA typically to accepted.
Edit: Please note the sarcasm.
People shit on M&M and sometimes it’s justified but if you want to be in the market segment they serve and can get on a good team, it can be very lucrative.
I'd place money that nationally, 75%+ of brokers had a 3.0 or below (myself included)
Does JLL care about gpa for their IS/DE analysts?
Not when I was hired, but certain teams might. Overall, I'd say no.
If you can pass a modeling test we give you, I don't care what your gpa was
I work in d/e at jll and two of our producers ask gpa’s on every analyst interview they go on, pretty stupid to me. I think its really doesnt play a role in their decision making unless we saw someone with lower than a ~3, maybe would bring up a few questions when considering. Really just depends on the persons determination, background, some basic modelings skills
That's actually incredibly reassuring. I think you just made my day
I'm interning within a large Canadian banks wealth management arm this summer. I'm trying to figure out on how to best leverage myself for an opportunity within CRE brokerage next summer. My local city's JLL office I think hires 1 intern for the summer, and the whole office is made up of maybe 10 people. Should I cold email the head broker to make an introduction? Thanks!
GPA is pretty lax in CRE. As a matter of fact, if you want to make a lot of money in a finance/transaction related role, but you have a shit GPA from a no-where school, CRE is not a bad place to get your foot in the door. There are plenty of leasing guys and brokers who just out grinded the competition. You can get rich without the pedigree.
I'd venture to guess only some real high-end type IS/DE teams may ask, but brokerage is the world that could give a shit about GPA. Can you close deals? That is what matters, to the extent to the try and measure stuff, I'd guess they will try and assess your social/emotional intelligence more (not by like tests, just judgement calls). Not trying to insult brokers, but you are not going to get paid for your intellect in that business.
What you need, is enough poise and intellect to maintain conversation with the 4.0 grad who is your client or works for the client (again, you will only find those in top level institutions, the whole middle market world will not stress this... at all). This is not that hard to overcome.
As a data point, i got dinged for my GPA for an associate role at one of the big NYC shops. I think there are just so many applicants that they can be insanely picky
I've heard various stories about the big name NYC shops/teams, that they make people prove their "rolodex" of connections to stand a real chance of getting hired. So, not sure if GPA is really what held you back from the stories I've heard.
In brokerage, I see it less influential just because it's more about competitive spirit. Lots of alpha, leader-types, and former athletes. basically, is your personality aggressive enough to close deals? At the bigger shops, I see it as maybe being a factor, but more so if you apply through an online portal as opposed to networking directly with someone who could get you an interview. If you make it to the interview and they decide to ask about it, just have a good explanation. If you get an interview I don't see the GPA as a reason they'd ding you.
The interview was with a internal recruiter, not the team itself. Maybe it was something else besides GPA. That was just the last thing we spoke about. This was a couple years ago and now i have a gig I'm happy with so it wasn't the end of the world at all.
Maybe they just had a lot of good applicants and used GPA to thin out the pile?
I would argue that success in brokerage and a high GPA are usually inversely correlated. People with high GPA's tend to be overly analytical, rigid/programmatic, are less creative/flexible, less "easy-going", and have a lower risk tolerance. They generally scored much higher on IQ than EQ, and emotional intelligence is the name of the game in brokerage.
The best brokers are basically real estate therapists to their clients and need to be flexible, creative, and be the cool level head in a negotiation process that can get quite emotionally heated at times. They need to be highly knowledgeable about their client's business and real estate needs, but should be able to see the forest through the trees and have the wherewithall and people skills to guide their clients to that perspective as well.
They also need to know how to fail and lose gracefully repeatedly because the business is highly competitive and there is a lot of failure and risk involved. By definition, someone with a high GPA has failed far less than their peers and may not have the internal resiliency/toughness inside them to be successful in this business. Learning to how to lose gracefully, learn from the failure, and get back on the horse is far more beneficial for success than how sophisticated your analytical skills are. It's why essentially every CRE broker I've met was some sort of competitive athlete at some point in their lives
None of this is to say that you can't be a good broker with a high GPA. In fact, the best ones usually had decent to high GPAs, and took that base level of intelligence and focused significantly on improving their emotional intelligence to match. Those kinda folks can be unstoppable in this business, but their high GPA/IQ isn't what makes them a great broker.
There’s a negative correlation between brokerage success and college GPA
- Associate in Capital Markets group
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