Trying To Break Into Commercial Real Estate After College? Do This.

If I could go back to college and do things over again, I would spend my time a lot differently, and I would also stop worrying about some things I now know don’t ultimately matter.

College is a huge opportunity to do things that tend to get a lot more difficult after graduation, and the people who take advantage of these things while they’re still in school end up having a much easier time when trying to enter the job market.

If you’re a sophomore, junior, or senior in college right now and you know the real estate industry is where you want to be, this post walks through some key actions that you should be taking before graduation rolls around (and some things that don’t matter as much as you might think).

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Don’t Stress Too Much About Your Major

Even though it might seem like this is a huge part of landing a job after graduation, in my experience coaching people through this process, a real estate major is not a requirement in the vast majority of cases.

Dedicated real estate degrees can help during the internship or full-time job search, but most schools don’t even offer this, and majoring in something like general business, economics, finance, or even architecture can all be sufficient to get your foot in the door.

What tends to matter a lot more to real estate firms than what you majored in is the fact that you’re pursuing (or you already earned) a 4-year degree, since this is usually a requirement for most commercial real estate analyst roles. Having real estate internship experience on your resume, having strong Excel modeling skills, and understanding real estate finance in general all tend to be weighted significantly more heavily by employers than what you ended up majoring in.

Get Internship Experience (Even Part-Time)

Having internship experience on a resume is one of the biggest differentiators I’ve seen over the years when new college graduates are looking for full-time jobs, and the most important thing to keep in mind while you’re in school is that an internship doesn’t have to be perfect to be impactful.

A lot of people treat internships as an all-or-nothing experience, where they’re only looking to land a structured 8 or 12-week summer opportunity. But in reality, any work experience that can get you on-the-job exposure to real estate finance outside of the classroom is valuable, and this can put you way ahead of other candidates who don’t have this on their resume.

Especially if you’re going to school in a major gateway market like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, there are very likely many local firms that are looking for part-time help, and taking on an opportunity during the school year where you’re working just 1-2 days a week can be tremendously valuable during the job search.

Why Part-Time Work Can Be Better

In a standard, cookie-cutter summer internship at a big company, you’re often just passed around different departments, but not really allowed to touch anything. But because of the lack of structure associated with most part-time work, in these roles, you’ll tend to do a lot more of the day-to-day activities that are actually representative of what you would be doing in a full-time analyst role.

Regardless of whether you’re working 5 days a week or just 1 day a week, the more in-office experience you can get, the more attractive you’re going to be as a candidate when applying for full-time positions. And if you’re looking for something that can help you stand out among your peers, taking on internships (even just part-time opportunities) is one of the highest-leverage actions you can take when finishing up your degree.

Use Informational Interviews to Find Hidden Opportunities

As a college student, you’re in a really unique situation where a lot of people are going to be very willing to talk to you and help you plan out your career. Taking advantage of this during your four years in school can put you way ahead of your peers, especially those who are only relying on job boards to find open positions.

Start with Alumni

The first people I’d recommend reaching out to are alumni of your university who are currently working in the real estate industry, since these people will remember what it was like to be in your shoes and have a self-interest in building the brand of the school.

A lot of universities have active alumni databases that you can tap into for a list of people to contact, but even if that’s not the case, just searching LinkedIn for alumni of your university working in the real estate industry can help you identify a list of people you want to reach out to. And when you do reach out, if you focus your outreach on learning more about different career paths and how these people got to where they are today, this can be a great way to build relationships that can end up leading to job opportunities that aren’t even advertised.

Companies May Create Roles for You

Especially if you’re open to the idea of part-time work, if someone likes you and sees potential in you long-term, they may even end up creating a role for you that they weren’t actively looking to fill before meeting you. And at just 15-20 hours a week, you can be an extremely low-cost investment for a company while also gaining extremely valuable experience to add to your resume.

Get Involved with Your School’s Real Estate Club

If you play a sport, you’re taking a demanding course load, or you have other work commitments that you have to prioritize, you might not be able to work a part-time job during school. If that’s the case, another way to strengthen your resume when applying for full-time jobs is to get involved with the real estate industry directly through your university.

In my experience, one of the best ways to do this is to get involved with your school’s on-campus real estate club. And if you can take on a leadership role within the organization, this is one of the best ways I know of to build your network quickly.

The Benefits of Leadership Roles

In a leadership role, you become the point of contact with local companies in your community to set up things like site visits or company information sessions, which allows you to build relationships with people you may not have otherwise been able to get in front of. And when it comes time to apply for full-time jobs, this can make you a very familiar name when an open position comes up.

Taking on a leadership role also makes it clear that you’re committed to the real estate industry and willing to put in the time and energy necessary to build relationships in the business. By managing a leadership position on top of the commitments you already have academically, this also tells employers that you have the kind of work ethic necessary to succeed in a demanding job.

Build Your Excel and Financial Modeling Skills

Everything we’ve talked about so far can help you land interviews in the first place, but at some point, you’ll need to actually go through the interview process for an internship or full-time job. And at that point, understanding Excel and real estate financial modeling becomes extremely important.

In the vast majority of cases, commercial real estate firms will look for interns and analysts who can take on Excel-based work that doesn’t require decades of industry experience to do well, so making sure you have these skills in place by the time graduation rolls around is mandatory to be competitive for most jobs in CRE.

Why This Matters Beyond The Interview

When you do ultimately land a role, having these skills in place will also make it a lot easier to get up to speed quickly in the position. Going into your first real estate job knowing basic Excel functions, how these are applied in a real estate context, and how to build a basic pro forma model from scratch in Excel are all things that will make it much more likely that you’ll have both shorter workdays and faster career progression in your first few years out of school.

Get Prepared Now

If you want to make sure you have the financial modeling and analysis skills you’ll need to pass an Excel modeling exam and make it through the interview process, make sure to check out our all-in-one membership training platform, Break Into CRE Academy.

A membership to the Academy will give you instant access to over 120 hours of video training on real estate financial modeling and analysis, you’ll get access to hundreds of practice Excel interview exam questions, sample acquisition case studies, and you’ll also get access to the Break Into CRE Analyst Certification Exam, which covers topics like real estate pro forma and development modeling, commercial real estate lease modeling, equity waterfall modeling, and many other real estate financial analysis concepts that will help you prove to employers that you have what it takes to tackle the responsibilities of an analyst or associate at a top real estate firm.