Q3/Q4 CRE Job Market Optimism (or lack thereof)

From my end, feels like things may be heating up a bit. Getting recruiters in my LinkedIn DMs, maybe seeing that uptick because I hit a year at my current position. For context, all for NYC; currently in a T2 city. Monkeys, how are we feeling going into Q3/Q4? Do we think we're going to be in a better spot for recruiting or even worse? Hopefully we've hit the trough and its up from here. Know there's similar posts about how bad it is currently, but want to gage if we are optimistic that hiring will increase again.

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I would strongly caution against interpreting recruiter spam or LinkedIn ghost job postings as actual hiring. 

...but is it REPE?
 

I'm on the brokerage side at a major name. We have cut our analyst hiring signifigantly. To be honest with AI we just don't need as many junior guys churning decks and data. If a junior hire has a skill set sure we will hire them, but we have cut our hiring from lower mid-level to junior hires signifigantly firm wide. Another thing I have noticed is most the guys we are hiring who are junior have an internships and are majoring in CRE or something similar. I remember when I joined I had a 1 week Argus training class. We no longer offer that. It is expected that you know how to work Argus.

Mid-Level hires we make all have deep relationships across the industry and can bring in their own business. I think the days of sucking on the tit on a book is over. I'm mid-level and 30 and I'am now expected to bring in business. 

I think this next generation of juniors are going to have a harder time breaking into the industry, and learning the basics. I'm seeing it at firms we do deals with. We used to generally get stuff from analysts now its mainly associates and VPs. It's amazing how much has changed in the past 8 years. 

 

Seeing many of the same trends.  If I'm future'casting, I think kids in high school need to get real world experience. In case of RE, take an unpaid internship doing literally anything, so when college comes around you can get some 'experience' even if it's unpaid shadowing a PM or unpaid leasing agent support.  The college degree as a 'signal' to employers is meaningless and totally dead at this point.  

The old model is totally dead: hiring someone with no experience (even with tons of pedigree / education) and sinking significant time and money to make them at all useful, when you could get 3x as much out of AI for 0.1x the cost.  Capital is over-taking labor, the marxist revolution is upon us (half-joking).  

 

I had 4 1st rounds/intros/recruiter calls last week and I am not any more optimistic than I was a few months ago when I wasn't even getting rejection emails. Almost certain these 3rd party recruiters are kicking tires and waiting for the perfect candidate to fall on their laps. And the other opportunities I see are some combination of underpaid or looking for someone overqualified. 

 

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