Not so great Alumni
I’m currently a senior at Rutgers and graduating in December. My goal is to try to break into Commercial Real Estate industry in NYC and hopefully land an analyst position when I graduate. I’ve been trying to network but the problem is a lot of my alumni aren’t in the CRE business. Theres only a limited number of people and the ones I could find mostly work in NJ (ex Parsippany, Morristown, East Rutherford etc). I’m still reaching out to as many as I can but I really want to be in New York its been a dream of mine since I was little. Should I just cold email the MDs and VPs of the New York offices?
P.S. I tried to find more alumni on LinkedIn by searching ex JLL Rutgers but LinkedIn only allows you to view a certain amount of profiles a month unless you’re a premium member. Is there a better way I can try to find more Alumni from my school?
Go to LinkedIn, search "JLL", click "People", search "Rutgers" in the search bar
Looks like there are 125 Rutgers alumni at JLL and specifically 90 in NYC - reach out to them. Out of 90, at least 5-10 alumni should reply to you
I did that it says “Greater New York Area” when you click on their profile and do a little more digging you see it’s actually Central Jersey/North Jersey. Also I can’t view all 90 profiles because I don’t have Linkedin Premium.
Ah yeah I see what you're talking about now. A lot of them are in NJ. Does Rutgers have an alumni connection resource you could use? That may be worth looking into.
If not, doesn't hurt to cold email/LinkedIn message anyone who you find interesting and may be able to help. I've done that hundreds of times and it does yield positive results.
You start your networking with alums but the buck doesn’t stop there. The Rutgers guys in Jersey work with guys based in Manhattan and if you show them you’re eager to learn and excited about RE they’ll connect you through to NYC. I’m going through the same process for LA (where my alums are non-existent) and I’m 5 points of contact down the network line from my alum/personal contact. intros lead to intros and everyone wants to help a hustler
This gives me so much hope! Yeah I’ve been cold emailing people and messaging as many people on LinkedIn as I can. Just hoping someone gives me a shot.
Definitely agree, I have been getting pretty could response rate lately on LinkedIn messaging probably because people have been having free time as of late. Most of them are from people I have absolutely have no connection with because like Rutgers, my school doesn't have many brokers in Nyc as well.
Normally I cold message like this: Hi xxx,
I'm xxx, a [year] at university studying [major]. I have been interested in entering the CRE industry and I have been following company for some time / applied as an intern.
I'd love to hear about your thoughts working there. Would you be open to answering a few questions? Anything would be much appreciated.
80% of the time they respond and we normally hop on a call and build a connection. I normally go in looking for advice and usually talk about gaining experience towards the end/2nd call.
Hope this helps
Rutgers has a real estate center, I would check there first, they know who is active.
I'm in NYC, I seem to bump into people who went to Rutgers (especially for UG) often in various CRE circles. My gut says the alumni network in CRE in NY area has to be huge on a relative basis. What may be making it tough to search is that people who got a grad degree elsewhere, may use that school as their primary school on LinkedIn. You may need to get a paid version of LinkdedIn to search beyond, but I'm not sure.
People tend to be more loyal and helpful to their UG alumni connections than grad school ones anyway, i think you just need to search more.
RU network in nyc is not big, especially in comparison to nyu + ivy league schools. real estate concentration for rutgers is only 2-3 years old.
Sure, NYU + Ivy is larger, clearly (I meant relative to the average state flagship school). But many of those alum are grad school alums. They went to schools like Rutgers for UG, it's worth searching more.
I reached out to some members on their advisory board. One of them is an Executive MD at CW at one of their NJ offices and I have a call with him on Wednesday. Hoping he can give me some NYC contacts or point me in the right direction.
tim, please dm me
The easiest way is to reach out to the alumni you can find and ask them to connect you with people they know/work with that aren’t alumni. They don’t all have to be in positions you’re interested in; talk to everyone you can and continue to build the network relentlessly until you can get in touch with the right people. I’m having a lot more success booking time for calls right now while everyone is WFH — pick up the phone!
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