New grad recruiting strategy
I recent graduated from a top Canadian business school and have decided to try to beak into CRE. ideally I would love to work in acquisitions but feel as though it may be hard for me to secure a position out of school due to my lack of experience.
I have had one real summer internship but it is not really related to commercial real estate. I do have experience in financial modeling through various extra curriculars at school. My GPA is also solid and I have almost finished the BIWS real estate modelling course. So while I don’t have any real experience I feel like my technical and excel are adequate.
I am in Toronto and since graduating have spent most of my time networking by cold messaging people in the industry on LinkedIn. I have be had close to 30 phone calls which have all gone well.
I have been checking job postings every day and there has been maybe 1 or 2postings in 3 months that has been relevant to me. I’m am not sure if this is just because of COVID or when I should expect more opportunities?
in the mean time, is there anything else I can be doing to better leverage the network I’ve created or to better position myself for a full time job in RE? Should I just keep messaging people on LinkedIn to continue to grow my network or is there anything else that I am missing?
There are a couple different ways to break into CRE acquisitions--but to get to your biggest hurdle: there is a scarcity of positions in this industry for acquisitions to begin with.
Any time I push a resume to my company, it is from an undergrad who has gone to my school and has relevant experience. It's someone who I can tell within 15-20 mins of a phone call that they know their stuff and will be able to hold up in an interview. However, you should note that the firm I work for is one of the very few MFs that recruit out of undergrad anyways, and there are hundreds of applications to these positions to compete against.
Don't let that stop you though--there are actually a great number of other CRE roles which can set you up to recruit for acquisitions down the line. In my experience, CRE careers have a much wider variance of career progression paths than traditional finance. IE, most folks who want to get into PE down the line will go through their 2 years in IB first. In REPE, there can be more paths and entry level positions available such as lending, brokerage/investment sales, ECM/DCM for RE, etc. It's true COVID may be hindering your job prospects for acquisitions specifically given the tough job market saddled with a lack of openings to begin with anyways. I'd consider other entry level positions in CRE as well--if you continue to network and work hard, you should be able to find a role that can transition you to acquisitions down the line.
I looked on Select Leaders a couple days ago to see the job action for San Francisco and it’s been the fewest Jobs I’ve seen since Select Leaders started. That leads me to think a couple things: 1) hiring is really down, 2) companies are posting on free sites like Indeed because they can get a solid pool of candidates, 3) combination.
I’ll harp on this again as I was unemployed twice (Longer than 6 months) in the past 15 years, including during the Great Recession. I think now more than the Great Recession is an opportunity (if you can somehow connect) to work with a business undergoing radical change and stress.
You want to learn real estate investing/acquisitions, capital markets, asset management, distress/restructuring, how Main Street lives; now is the time you can find this work. You’ll get paid pretty crappy, but most eat to kill jobs are really difficult to get by. Now more than ever I get pinged by capital brokers on LinkedIn; they are hungry but they know things are shook and new relationships formed.
See if you can be a financial analyst somewhere. Negotiate a hourly rate. Prob be 1099. Show that you can be resourceful. In some ways I’m saying for now (and keep looking and applying) but being job candidate #500 for REPE firm analyst job is a crap shoot. The best (and this happened) is come up with a thesis and approach a business or non-profit and ask has anyone proposed this solution? And they say, no but we’re very interested. Could open doors.
Every business needs accounting. That’s another in.
There is so much change in ways things are being done, it’s very interesting to be part of the strategy. You are also trying to stay ahead of the conventional reasoning in order to secure scarce resources. You’ll learn a ton. And when you come back to Wall Street and work in a tall building far away from Main Street; you’ll be that much better as an investor/business person and I think leader/visionary. It’s my take, having done something like that mainly out of desperation and now choice.
>Every business needs accounting. That's another in.
I'd be wary of this, I had quite a few RE accountants in my MBA class with the intent to move over to acquisitions/development. It's easy to get pigeon-holed as "the accountant". It is definitely helpful if you are trying to stake it out on your own, but I wouldn't be so sure about the lateral movement ability.
the route for accountants is via asset management or capital markets/IR, with paths leading to CFO or CIO. I've known a few people in very senior roles with accounting backgrounds, some firms/industries do value it a lot.
I’m now thinking The Jungle is upon us (July in the USA) more so than when I wrote this back in March.
Surviving the Jungle
Credit markets have become more active. Banks who were not lending on deals have come back - although nothing closed yet so crossing fingers. So, all is not lost regarding transactions. But will we be in a hiring funk in the near future? I think so due to uncertainty.
This is 100% what I've been hearing on the development side. People are struggling to decide if they should be prepping for a long recession or getting shovels in the ground now so that they can capitalize when we theoretically bounce out of it in 18-24 months. Either way though, there has been so much hiring in this cycle that most companies already have the staff they need to keep the machine going and their current people are far less likely to leave now for greener pastures since there is nowhere to go.
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