Career Advice - REPE - MBA?

Hello all,

Looking for a bit of career insight here. I am 6+ years out of college and have had a bit of circuitous career so far, all within the real estate industry. I've worked at a GSE, then at a very small shop doing acquisitions/ development, then in leasing and now in investment sales (analytical role, not a broker).

My goal at this point is to break into the upper echelons of REPE. To that end, I am doing a doing a master's in real estate finance (part time at night) at one of the more recognized programs (think NYU Schack, Georgetown). I am very active in the program (writing for magazine, involved in different case studies, building relationships with faculty) but am not getting that much traction yet career-wise, despite talking to recruiters, cold emailing, networking, etc for a while. I am beginning to think an MBA would have been a better route to achieve my goal, so my question is, do most REPE (or investment management type shops - think Nuveen etc) recruit straight out of MBA? Or would I need to do a stink in RE investment banking?

Any insight even remotely related to this situation is much appreciated.

4 Comments
 
Most Helpful

How far do you have to go with the program? If you are doing a 2 -2.5 year part time program and only in semester 2, you are going to have a harder time getting a look from places until you are closer to finished. 

A lot of the "top tier" shops recruite mbas out of their intern class. Since you are part time, you probably aren't going to be doing an internship which will make it even harder to get your master program progress recognized until closer to completion with those firms. It is really hard to recruit for a job that is 2 years out.

 

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