Masters student targeting analyst roles, Advice?
I’m 20, currently pursuing my MRED at ASU and graduating in May 2027. Doing really well academically, but honestly starting to feel pretty lost when it comes to breaking into the industry.
I’ve been networking extremely aggressively, setting up 8-10 coffee chats and 15+ calls a week with people at brokerage firms, debt shops, developers, and REPE firms. Almost every conversation goes well, and I keep hearing some version of “we’d love to have you, but we’re just not hiring right now.” It’s getting pretty frustrating.
On the technical side, I feel like I’m in a good spot. I’m constantly working on modeling outside of class, building pro formas from scratch, debt schedules, equity waterfalls, and GP/LP distributions. I’ve also been taking additional modeling courses because I genuinely enjoy this stuff and want to be as prepared as possible. I know none of that replaces actual deal experience, but I’m trying to do everything I can to get there.
My long-term goal is REPE, but I’m realistic enough to know I need transaction experience first. Ideally, I’d love to land at a debt and equity placement shop, capital markets team, or even a CRE credit shop where I can get exposure to live deals and build from there.
I’m primarily targeting Phoenix but open to relocating to TX, NY, CA. I’ve reached out to plenty of firms, and it feels like I’m doing everything people recommend without getting much closer to an actual analyst seat.
For those of you already in the industry, where would you be looking if you were in my position? Are there certain types of firms or roles I’m overlooking? Is the junior hiring market really this difficult right now, or am I approaching this wrong?
Not expecting to walk into Blackstone out of grad school. Just looking for a place where I can work hard, learn from people who know what they’re doing, and get some actual deal reps.
Would appreciate any advice.
You’re doing everything right. This is arguably the worst hiring market in the modern commercial real estate industry. (It was not this hard to get a job coming out of the Great Recession partially because the industry was not as institutionalized as it is now.) Keep networking and try to keep your head up.
Thank you! Currently 10pm and doing WSP courses lol. I still have 7 months until graduation, so hopefully I can land a spring internship here soon and get a full-time role come summer.
Something that worked for me was: after the interviews/networking meetings in which someone said "we’d love to have you, but we’re just not hiring right now," ask the person three other people they think you should meet with. Be shameless with this. Ask for introductions or direct email addresses and everything. Being able to say "I just met with John Smith and he recommended I talk to you," in an email makes your email a warm email, not a cold email.
I got my first job in development this way. I met with a principal of a company I really wanted to work for and he hit me with the same "we’d love to have you, but we’re just not hiring right now" BUT when I asked who else I should talk to, he gave me a company name that I hadn't reached out to before. Once I did on the first person's recommendation, I got a meeting immediately, and was able to talk intelligently about all of these people in the industry whom I had met with.
So much of hiring, especially when times are tight, is about being in the "in crowd." If you show up recommended, name drop a few other people that the interviewers can cross reference, your chances of finding a break are much higher.
This.
You're networking hard, which is good, but the "we aren't hiring right now" feedback means you're talking to the wrong people. Coffee chats with people who don't control the hiring budget just build a network, not a job. You need to be talking to team leads or managing directors at small-to-mid-sized shops who are feeling the pain of being understaffed, not just the analysts.
capital markets analyst is how I got my start and i now work at a family office
One thing that would set you apart as an analyst is getting fast with AI on the grunt work. Learn to draft memos and QA models with it now. The juniors who can turn a messy data room into a clean draft in an afternoon are the ones teams fight over.
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