Stalled Career Progression
Hi everyone, am looking for some career advice. Am working currently as an acquisitions associate for a national affordable housing developer, but feeling like I don't have much opportunity to learn in my current role, given how the team is set up (my manager and more sr acq staff are not in the LA office where I work - they wfh virtually in Chicago/NYC), and the fact that my manager doesn't have a strong finance background (is more of a brokerage guy, admits that I am "probably better in Excel" than him even). I have been looking for new roles in my market (LA/OC/open to SF), but not getting a lot of bites. Any recommendations for things to do outside of my current role to continue to learn and also make my resume look attractive? I also have a top MRED, have completed a lot of the online modeling coures (REFM, ACRE, Josh Kahr), have the Argus Cert, and have 3 years of experience at a small GP doing acquisitions (focus on value add multi/industrial/student).
Not what you want to hear, but just keep networking & applying. You aren’t hearing back because the market is ass, not because you are a bad candidate. If you had to reach out to 100 companies to get 10 interviews and 1 offer before, now you need to hit up 1,000.
Also maybe not what you want to hear, but RE gets way more brokery than financey as you get more senior. I would almost always expect an associate to have better excel skills than their superior.
Confused by OP’s expectation that his manager would be a better excel monkey than he is.
I just assumed from having more direct work experience that they would be (also, my manager before this current one was way better in Excel than I was)
Let’s also be honest about the fact that the job market is pretty terrible right now. There has been a tangible shift from an employees market to an employer’s market. From maybe around 2016 to 2022 you could find at least a lateral move almost instantaneously. I remember being analyst-level in the early 2010’s and it was unfortunately 100s applications that boiled down to a very small number of interviews. Months of efforts with no result, giving up and then trying again later.
You feel your growth has stalled. It probably has, but so has everyone else for the most part. It’s bad for CRE roles, but ask someone in SaaS sales or support (or tech in general) how they are doing right now…..
Agree with everyone here but I will say the market is starting to turn a bit but probably still 1-2 years away from any real turn around in regards to employment opportunities.
If you hang on and try and learn as much as you can you’ll be in a good spot in a couple of years to get a position that probably pays 30-40% more with a lot of responsibility. Realistically it’s probably a fools errand to jump ship now, and probably is worth it to wait until the market improves more.
Maybe be candid with your manager about trying to learn more and sharpen your skills. Promotion may not be in the cards but people generally are supportive of those who want to learn.
You’ll get a shot soon you just need to be as ready as you can be when the market turns to capitalize on this.
Subscribe to LIHTC Leaders on LinkedIn if you want to say in affordable. There are a lot of roles posted recently at various experience levels. This market is super tough. Keep going. Good luck.
AI is going to make excel skills redundant soon anyway so that’s irrelevant
Not necessary if you have a strong network, but some of the more PE heavy shops like hiring people with CFAs
Bump - in the same boat to some extent. OP, why'd you go from generalist coverage to affordable development? Do you like the specialization?
You don’t make it to the top of this industry by being good at excel. The people who make it are good at building relationships. They know the numbers but that’s not what differentiates them.
It took me way too long to realize making people like you is the most important skill to have.
Do you have any advice on how to build relationships with people at institutional RE LPs (other than trying to cold email/linkedin outreach them/meet them at ULI networking events)?
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