Year Off Post Grad

I am going into my senior year at a top Ivy and interning at a large developer. I have solid internship experience and I am not entirely sure if I want to go into development, repe, or reib post grad but I am dead set on working in real estate in some capacity. Would it be detrimental to my career prospects to take a year off after college before searching for jobs? I want to travel the world and I am afraid that I will never have the time to do so once I begin work. How will this gap in my resume be viewed? Is there any value in waiting to see if the job market improves?

16 Comments
 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 

How are employers about asking to start a year later? That would be my most ideal situation. But I am afraid of getting an offer rescinded by asking.

 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 

Thanks for going through four interviews with me for the role you have open as a current position, I’m sure you had a lot of free time. Mind if I start a year from now during the next hiring cycle?

Advocate for yr off, I wouldn’t interview then ask that from them. It’s a business relationship, not asking a favor from your aunt and uncle. Good luck with Senior year.

 

I would not take a year off. The compromise here may be to do a month long trip before heavily recruiting or ask if you can delay a month before starting. Experience should be the number one priority in this market/economy. With how company culture is shifting post pandemic, you’ll probably still have good opportunities to travel with PTO (depends on the company but still).

 

I would continue to search for jobs and get as many offers as you possibly can. It would be much easier to ask for a start date 3-4 months post graduation to give you some time. You could backpack Europe for a couple of months and see a lot of the world. It should be a good balance between both. But, if you don't get your ideal offer you could always take the year off and travel still. 

 
Most Helpful

Top Ivy, good internships. You'll be fine. May have to be a little bit patient while looking for jobs when you get back, but you'll get hired. We interviewed a guy who took some time off post-college to travel. My boss didn't like that, and was a reason we didn't expedite giving him an offer (this was after he was already back...great kid).

Long story short, he got hired at my company in another office for a different role lol. I guess I'm in the minority here, but I wish I took a year off to travel or something. I'm late 20's now and it's so hard to find the time. You'll never get it back. Maybe you don't land the dream job right when you get back but a 1/2 year "set back" (which it isn't if you're traveling having awesome life exp.) won't really hurt you when you're 40/50. 

Maybe work on something tangible while you travel - a blog/notes on cities, development, architecture - can try and even tie it back to RE/development. 

 

Yes, definitely detrimental for your career, but at some point who gives a shit? 

Go travel the world. It'll be infinitely cooler than being promoted to VP at 29 versus 28. 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Totally agree. I’m not worried about getting promoted a year later, but I’m just worried how differently firms will look at me with that one year gap in the resume.

 

Totally agree. I’m not worried about getting promoted a year later, but I’m just worried how differently firms will look at me with that one year gap in the resume.

Some will think you're a weirdo. 

The people who think it's cool that you traveled the world for a year are the ones you want to work for though. 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I'd say take the year off - recently after some self reflection (and advice from MDs at big funds) I realized it's more important to prioritize your mental and happiness, especially if you have prior experience. The comp can come later in life but travel and be adventurous while you still can.

 

I took the summer off after graduating which quickly turned into a year since I was having a great time traveling and visiting family/friends I haven’t seen since the pandemic. I was truly in a great state of mind compared to when I graduated.

Obviously, the ability to do a gap year is situational. But if you can you should, especially since the job market is so bad and probably won’t change until 2025 at the earliest.

 

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