How do you guys go about showing of your modelling capabilities, to potential employers, without sending them an actual model you have constructed?
I'm looking at approaching companies that are not specifically recruiting right now but I'd like them to see first-hand what I can do on a specific asset class and have a model that I have spent some time on. I'm the sole creator of said model but with 50/50 of it created on company/personal time I suppose half of it belongs to the business...I presume that's how it works.
I understand I could ask them to give me a modelling task but I'd prefer take some initiative on the subject.
You don't just blindly send models
Given your post I am not going to read you are a "people person". I will start out saying I would not open an excel file from anyone I do not know. It could be filled with VBA macro enabled code and mess up my computer. I would probably ignore your email.
Instead, cold email or call...yes you have to try and find out who you will want to connect with and then try and get their email. Once you start corresponding with the person(search on WSO cold email templates) mention you are good with excel and would be happy to send along a sample of your work. Make sure the property is redacted when you send it.
No one will care if you're the best "modeler"
You need to be competent at modeling in this industry - and if you're the best in your office, people might give you credit for it and make you the go to guy - but even if they opened the file, no one is going to care.
Half of the execs can't do shit in excel either and the other half isn't going to comb through your formulas to see if you found an innovative way of dividing the NOI by the cap rate.
Sending a model to a company that didn't give you a test as part of an interview is like sending an unsolicited dick pic to a girl you just met.
There is a 10% chance of it working is what you are trying to say?
When I send women photos of Dick Chaney i get 25-40% positive responses.
Chill guys...I'm not going to send a model, I may have confused the question by waffling about my model in the second paragraph. The whole basis of the question is how would you demonstrate, whether in words or not, that you are in fact a decent modeller. I feel like the 'are you good at excel?' is the equivalent question of 'are you a good driver?'...just about everyone is going to say yes.
I just don't think the 'Proficient at excel', '3-tier Equity Waterfalls' or 'Residual land value modelling' on the CV really cuts it on a cold email. I need something that could add a bit of punch to maybe a CL.
I'm just wondering how others would approach it in terms of explaining or describing how they have gone about delivering a model from scratch, tailored it towards a specific investor, etc.
P.S. I'm a great people person btw...just a rubbish internet person
Tell them you are a black belt 12 tiered equity waterfalls and then wait for them to begin fellating you.
That's a bit of the point though, no? If there's no way to prove it, just make it clear that you have underwritten deals and leave it to that. Part of my point in my post above is that a lot of people simply won't care.
If they hire you and you're a stud, cool. If they hire you and you're not quite up to snuff, it's easy to learn and easy to teach. It's not going to be a deciding factor most of the time.
Hell, at a lot of companies "modeling" just means plugging in inputs into an established company model that everyone uses.
I would say yeah to the modeling, maybe at banks and crappy debt funds. But my experience at brokerage and fully integrated investment and development funds, the modeling is really sophisticated.
But usually those that care state they give a test, usually scares those who have no skills from applying.
Real estate model in excel is a joke The best way to prove yourself without any working experience is having a undergrad degree from top schools
You're grammar are joke
Thanks, I'll keep this in mind for my next life.
I can back up that saying you know how to do it, and actually knowing how to do it are pretty much the same thing to most of the people making hiring decisions.
HR has never seen an excel spreadsheet before, Operations doesn't know anything other than the sort feature, your potential boss still does everything on a HP 12c and the capital partner of the company does everything off what his gut tells him.
Story to back this up, as an analyst, I sent a financial model (along with some other things) that I built for a team to my boss's boss in hopes of it helping me with a promotion...... And was asked the next day what all those numbers meant.....
I've also had a recruiter who had worked only in real estate and finance recruiting for the past few years fairly candidly ask me what a 'knowing how to make a waterfall model' was because he had heard a number of clients request it but was too embarrassed to ask any of his clients what it meant.
i would love to know what sector, my boss is incredibly sharp with the financial modeling.
I agree with MonopolyMoney. Your boss might be the exception. But imo, tons of "bosses" - VP's, Directors, etc are not great with financial modeling. A college student with REFM or BIWS experience will be better at modeling than the bosses. Some bosses genuinely add value though because they fundamentally get what's good real estate and what's not. It's a skill developed over the course of a couple of decades. Their excel skills are not a hindrance to them. They have analysts do the grunt work and have associates check the work.
I get what you are saying. I'll be trying to stay away from the larger outfits and target smaller PE places where the structure won't be set in that sort of fashion.
Recruiters at my level (3-4 yr exp.) are pretty much useless...I will still give them the time of day though as who knows if it might pay off.
When I do interviews for my fund I always demand a model they've created in the past (redacted of course) and them test them on the model setup and why they did certain things to see if they indeed created the model. I once had a candidate send me a model, and notwithstanding the fact he sent it to me late (delivered on a Friday with a Wed deadline I demanded), when I opened it up in VBA it showed the true author, whom upon some little googling revealed was the guy's former boss at another fund...needless to say if you're going to steal models, be sure to clean them up and ensure no comments reveal the actual guy who built it..just my .02s.
If the applicant is from a large company, it likely has IT systems in place which make it next to impossible to take a model without being caught / risking being fired.
Curious as to what you mean by using VBA to see who the real author was? How does that differ to checking author in the properties?
Setting aside the late deadline, the 'author' field of an excel file isn't always the best way to gauge who actually created the file. I have tons of models that I've created close to 100% at this point with author fields inadvertently referencing an older file I began with years ago, or even created by me on a co-worker's computer/conference room login for example. Not that I try to leave that field incorrectly labeled, but it's often arbitrary depending on who's computer you were logged into when you created it.
Doesn't mean shit.
As I said before read my comment before replying. VBA macro writers often, if not almost always, in the comments section note the author of the f*cking code..this was the case and he was guilty of using someone's model. If you assert the claim he simply copied someone else's macro then (1) he's still guilty of stealing code and (2) he should've disclosed up front a macro that he didn't author (aka giving credit where credit is due). If you don't know what VBA is hit alt-F11 and go learn something instead of writing stupid comments above.
agree, same.
I wouldn't send the model unless asked for it. I am guessing is you want to 1) demonstrate that you know your work, and 2) you wanted sort of in with the company to move up to the next step of the process - be in interviewing or trying to get someone to mentor to move ahead.
I think on BIWS, there is like a 5 page deck presentation on how you should think about a multiple residential property. The key analysis was 1) what is the property, 2) what can be done to increase the value, 3) how do we finance the working capital, and 4) what you will earn if you do that properly.
Although the modeling is involved, the audience see more of the output and your thinking process which senior people would highly value it. And also it requires less effort from their part to actually look at your presentation deck in comparison to actually reviewing your model - which without reference - it can be quite difficult.
Hope this is helpful.
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