An associate role becomes available less than 24 hours ago - WITH OVER 100 APPS SUBMITTED.
WTF are you supposed to do? Sure, i have a great resume. What exactly does that do though when there are 100 others with probably more experience? Do i just reach out to the entire team to network?
Shit is fucked yo
How do you know any of the other applicants are qualified? And if they are... what's the problem?
This is the case with any high finance job. You have to realize 90% of those applications are the “quick apply” chuds. Very few are on the same level as you.
We put a LinkedIn opening with hundreds of applications and 99%+ of the applications were straight garbage.
I used to also be intimated by the numbers till I saw that the majority of it is people with zero relevant background.
Keep in mind that clicking the apply button will add to the total applicant count regardless.
Even if someone doesn’t submit an app, it still counts if they click the button.
Saw a TikTok of a recruiter going over a position they posted to LinkedIn and 90% were unqualified, under-qualified, and/or in a different field entirely. Anecdotal but you got to work with the environment we are in, ladies and gents.
Yeah, in my experience anytime we've posted a role to Linkedin for our shop a good 60% of resumes are literally instant throwaways, and another 20-30% rejects after 30 seconds of review.
If you are qualified enough reach out to recruiters.
The market is beyond awful for cre in nyc
I would say reach out to the entire team to network is more effective than cold applying online (even if there is no job posting). There’s also a chance the decision has been made before they even posted it and the job posting is just HR/compliance BS. I’ve never gotten a job from applying cold online.
Stop crying keep applying and do something to stand out
Agree - everyone on WSO bitches in an echo chamber.
You have to be unequivocally the best candidate in every process. Crisp behaviorals, executive presence (VP and up) articulate deal walkthroughs where you don’t crumble after a tough follow-up question, and obviously pass the modeling test.
Hah, this is not unique to NYC. The job market blows right now.
Having been on the other side of this the LinkedIn algorithm does great at listing the most relevant resumes at the top which solves to the top 20 applicants from hundreds and then comes down to experience and fit otherwise search goes on
This is nyc baby everyone wants to be here.
Chicago any day
I’m probably an outlier, but I always ask HR to send me the unfiltered stack of resumes so I can look through them all. It takes me maybe 20 seconds to look over each and I would rather go through all of them myself than letting HR/an algorithm filter.
You should apply regardless of the number of applicants shown, but your best bet is always going to be networking or a recruiter.
Back in the heyday in 21/22, I had a couple analyst roles to fill. REPE at a non-NYC but very active & large shop, really great gig for someone 0-3 years experience. At the time, my shop’s HR screened zero resumes so as the hiring manager I had to go through every single one. 100 applicants was nothing - for each of those roles I had over 1k people.
From that 1k+, it was easy to filter down to about 50-60 resumes that had a chance of being the right fit. From there it was pretty easy to cut to about 25 based on skillset and location, then I rank ordered and did brief screening interviews + excel test for about a dozen. That got it down to 5, maybe 6 real candidates.
I say all that to show that 100 applicants in a day is not unusual, neither now or earlier in time. But also most resumes are absolute trash or irrelevant. I had a guy that managed a CVS apply, a whole bunch of military people that saw the word “acquisitions” and thought it was a supply chain role, people living in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, Harvard MBAs, PhDs in science fields….
Given all that, the typical approach of networking and applying still works. There aren’t THAT many great candidates for roles. If you want to truly stand out though, the networking needs to come before a job comes available - either with the firm or with someone who will refer you to them. That’s nothing different than in the past.
If you don't mind me asking, why do you highlight the "Harvard MBAs" as part of the trash or irrelevant applicants? I'd love to hear your thoughts on, say, applicants with a HBS/GSB/Wharton MBA that are trying to transition into CRE after 10 yrs doing something entrepreneurial and don't mind a lower title/comp? Sorry for threadjacking.
I say this as someone with an MBA from a respected full time program… people coming from those programs are too senior for an analyst job, unless it’s at an absolute top tier firm (BX and the like). They should be looking at Associate or higher. MBAs from full time programs get hired as Associates in IB, even with no relevant experience, so it’s akin to that. When you are hiring an MBA (particularly from a school that’s worth going to full time), you are hiring someone that you expect to learn and grow quickly, and need to have a path of advancement ready for them. Otherwise they will leave after a year or two as they are grossly overqualified. When you are hiring an analyst, you want someone that can grow sure, but you don’t want someone that’ll immediately ask for more than you can give them responsibility or compensation-wise. Turnover is wildly costly, and presumably when hiring an analyst you already have a midlevel team in place - and if your team is high performing (like mine was), you don’t necessarily want to rock their growth trajectories.
I think a useful heuristic is even if there are 5 analysts (there are not) at each of the PERE 100s (I don’t think most people would know the names past 30-50) plus 70 decent sellside shops (aren’t that many) plus 30 MBA/MSRE programs (aren’t that many) competing for all the non-MBA associate seats, there are only 1,000 candidates for all the opportunities combined.
And if you have interacted with the even the junior people from some of the best shops in the business you know most of them are just completely clueless and a lot of them have terrible resumes. The fact of the matter is even at the junior level the community of people who “gets it” and are slated to stick around is extremely small compared to the general workforce, and it’s not that hard to distinguish yourself especially if you already have a foot in the door.
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