Career Advice Badly Needed - B4 Audit and Multifamily RE Hopeful
Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I first want to give a little background on my story because it's pretty unique. During undergrad (top 15 undergrad business program), I was completely torn between majoring in finance / real estate and finance and accounting. At one point, I was actually a triple major, but quickly realized that triple majoring in 4 years while maintaining sort of a social life would be very difficult. I was admitted to a RE group which is basically an extra case based class where we learned the basics of RE modeling/brokerage/fundamentals and networked with a lot of established firms. Multifamily was the only property type that I enjoyed working with, and since I still was very torn on what to do with my career, I talked to a lot of my business "mentors." Many of my business mentors (I knew through my parents) had started their careers in external audit and ended up in awesome forward looking positions (CEO's, CFO's, corp fin, Small /mid sized business owners, wealth management, one even ended up in real estate). One of my parents had one of these career paths as well, and they strongly suggested I start in audit. None of them really enjoyed auditing, but they all said it afforded them a great understanding of how businesses work and they were all glad they started their career in audit. I knew if I was going to take that route, I'd need 150 credit hours to sit for the CPA exams which made it more impractical to continue with real estate as a major, so I dropped it and continued with finance/accounting. Covid-19 ruined my junior year internship experience (all B4 had a shortened modified virtual one), so I only met a few older staff that were paired to me and then and didn't really get a sense of what the work was like at the firm. I accepted my offer before returning to my senior year and honestly felt pretty lucky to have a job lined up considering all the Covid-related uncertainties in the job market at the time.
Late in second semester of my senior year, my parents decided to start buying a few single family rental properties and I started helping with everything: finding properties, preparing lease terms, underwriting, property management. I LOVED it. Then after summer ended, I started my audit job at a B4 firm. I knew it wasn't going to be the most interesting work, but it is mind numbing, isolating, and almost completely virtual. Other than getting quicker on excel, I don't feel like I'm learning anything of relevance in the business word. After doing a decent amount of research, it seems that maybe the exits from external audit aren't as great as they once were 20 or 30 years ago, would you say that's the case? I honestly don't even want to finish the CPA exams because i've seen multiple people complain about the difficulties of trying to land a finance related job after putting CPA after their name. So i'm pretty disappointed with where i'm at right now, but just trying to figure out my best move going forward. Got a 3.5 GPA from a solid business school, held a few leadership roles throughout college. Given my experience with the real estate group throughout college, long time interest in multifamily, and recent experience with single rental family investing (starting to put individual pitchbooks together for these properties so that i have something to talk about in interviews), do you think its too late for me to land an AM or acquisitions role at a smaller entrepreneurial Multifamily firm? I've grown up working at smaller privately held businesses and much prefer this entrepreneurial culture relative to B4 and the well established B4 clients. So I would be targeting the smaller, less known names (<200 employees). I understand that acquisitions would be a longshot at this point. But I would be completely okay with an AM role at the right firm and then I could hone in my modeling skills throughout the next year or so and then apply for acquisitions roles.
Also, I know networking in commercial real estate is so essential, and firms want to make sure you're 100% committed to RE as a career.
Does it make the most sense for me to leave my B4 job now and focus full time on networking / recruiting / modeling / ARGUS / taking a few RE courses to ensure my prospective future employer knows multifamily is my passion that I plan to pursue? Planning to do all that while working full time (with busy season right around the corner) isn't feasible, and the longer I wait to leave the more my story starts to fall apart regarding the single family investment properties showing me that RE investing is really what I want to do with my life. Also, if i stay i feel like i'm playing right into the stereotypes of a typical accountant by trying to plan my next career move while keeping my safe b4 job in my back pocket just in case it doesn't work out. That's exactly what an accountant would do that's afraid of taking risks. Overall, are multifamily valuation / PE groups busy / hiring right now? There seems to be a lot of positions available but I don't have a good benchmark to compare this to. Since I only needed 2 more RE classes to complete my major, so i considered re-enrolling at my university in January to finish my major, re recruit, and add the RE major to my resume, but my school doesn't allow a graduate to return for another degree. So i've also been considering MSF programs. Thoughts on those?
And another consideration is that I've been a saver/ investor my entire life, and have enough money stashed away to last me probably 2 years without any income. So i'm fortunately not in the position where I need to keep my current job in order to pay the bills. I won't need it at all but my parents would help out if needed.
I'm only 22, it can't be too late. I definitely appreciate any input, especially related to my next move. If you guys were in my situation, what would you do? My dream job for my age would be to be an acquisitions analyst for a small or medium sized RE PE firm that exclusively does multifamily. Id love to work at one of these firms and make my own investments on the weekends. How to I get there?
Long story short - definitely not too late for you but definitely agree if you know you want to pivot from B4 you should do so sooner than later - RE is really about networking, just share your story and take multiple people out for coffee/drinks/lunch each week and pick their brains and ask for contacts who may be hiring. Really not hard to find a RE acquisitions or AM job right now you just need to showcase why you are a good candidate and most importantly a good culture fit for the firm
Given my situation, should I be concentrating on networking / building up my modeling skills full-time? My worry is that if I stay in audit for the next 2 months, ill be locked in for a 4 month busy season where i'll be working late and on saturdays, which would really really limit my time spent on anything else. And by the end of that, the current seniors in college will becoming available for hire and will fill most of these positions. I appreciate the response.
Yes I would get out of accounting - get a part time job to help pay the bills and network 24/7 through email/coffee/drinks/lunch and don’t be too picky about what role you want just get into the CRE world and figure it out from there
Joining an investment sales team my be your easiest path. You can even spin your CPA background as value add to the team because you can assist clients with the tax impacts of their sales. Also, it’s great that you know you want to work with MF, but I would get some experience under your belt before you try to focus on a specific asset class.
@meaty_bones I just started about 2-ish months ago at the firm, and don't have all of the CPA exams passed yet. Also,im in the audit practice and the client ive been placed on isnt a real estate company so i don't really have any relevant experience with the tax implications of these transactions. Like I said, after reading a bunch of discussions on this topic im a bit apprehensive to continue with CPA because it seems that make get pigeonholed into accounting roles while trying to transition out. And I wouldn't be completely closed off to other asset classes outside of multifamily, but do know that I enjoy multifamily so much more than the others. I'm actually grateful for this since I feel that it will help me narrow down my search and focus on a specific industry.
With only two months in, you’re not even an accountant yet (meant as a massive positive). I took the CPAs right out of school and worked in PA for four years before I started doing things to get out. Something to think about, if you’re contemplating quitting now, how are you going to feel in May after spending 5 months working banking hours while making dogshit with no time to network/learn in what you’re actually trying to do? As someone that stayed too long, I say get out while you still can. If you can’t line a job before YE go back to school. I eventually went the MSRE route to try to rebrand, but if I was younger I would’ve tried my hardest to get on an institutional IS team as a stepping stone to get to the buy side.
You said MSF, but what about an MSRE? I'd suggest to have a little more work experience before going that route, but tons of people go right from undergrad and you do have some RE experience with your family, along with B4. So that's better than nothing.
Depending on what MSRE, you could start next semester, or you could wait until next year to class up.
Maybe ask to transfer to the RE group in the B4 if you stay for a little?
There isn't a right answer to this. I have a handful of friends that left B4 within a year, so this isn't uncommon. I'd say you're so early in your career that you could leave and hit it hard for an entry level role. Plus it's a strong job market. But definitely a risk to leave with no back up.
Also, learning what you don't like is just as important as learning what you do like. So take this as a win and definitely go with what you feels is right.
Musashi You're right, MSRE would be much more useful for me. When you say more work experience, do you think it'd be best to apply with a well known B4 firm on my resume but in an unrelated field or relevant experience at a lesser known RE company? I've done some searching online regarding MSRE, but information isn't as widely available as MBA programs for example. Should I instead reach out to current MSRE students for insights? I agree that learning what you dont want is just as important as learning what you do want.
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