Gov/Urban planning/blue hair to CRE Finance or development
To give some background, I am just about to hit a year on my first job out of school, a back-up job that I took during the pandemic because I was pretty risk averse as a first gen college kid. I work for a financial regulator, where I basically review loans and analyze the loan officer's work in a pretty niche industry.
I originally studied Finance and Sociology with the hope of entering urban planning. With that goal, I worked at my university, county, and a suburb through college doing urban policy related stuff. Nothing political, but all related to urban land. Eventually, I had a kind of epiphany that urban planning really wasn't what I want to do. Urban planners constantly talk about what should be done or spend years developing plans that set the guidelines for what other people will actually do. That doesn't sound fun, and I'd much rather be in development, where I can create the change I want to see and add value by creating nice places for people to live.
I've tried to make the transition, even securing an internship for a Blackstone RE portfolio company in summer 2020 (RIP), but have obviously failed.
I get interviews, but it seems like my interviewers come in so skeptical of me, like I am a communist or have blue hair and septum piercing. It feels like I am down 3 goals as soon as the interview starts, like it was a mistake I got in or something. It always seems like I never sell my interviewers on my "finance" or "business"-savvyness, even though I studied finance, took multiple modeling classes, and have won development case competitions. One interviewer even told me, when I said that I like development because you create change and building something new, "our firm doesn't do that progressive stuff. we build 3rd ring." I know that. I got past the first round because I looked at your website and told the first-round interviewer why your big suburban blocks were special.
I just want to build stuff. Sure my resume looks progressive, and I am probably more left of center than everyone on this forum, but I am a finance major and I intentionally took multiple modeling classes, did informational interviews, and won CRE case competitions because I want to make money and build shit.
How did everybody else make the jump from government to CRE? Do you have any advice on selling yourself? I am not a member of the left-wing political group that starts with an A.... I want to build beautiful phallic monuments that pay me just like every other guy on this sub. I'm kidding, but you know what I mean. Obviously this is a failure to communicate on my part, so I am trying to fix it. Help me please lol
First... do you have blue hair? Or anything that makes you look like you suggest? This may all be in your head, but maybe you are communicating it pretty directly or at least in directly. Not sure it matters... but you literally put it in the title of the post!
So, there is my take, and it might surprise you..... You are less than year out of UG, working in something we can call "tangential to real estate", and are getting presumably multiple interviews with real estate development firms! Yeah, buddy... that's pretty bad ass actually. Developers by and large do not hire direct from UG, and tend to favor direct related experience when they hire non-dev people (like brokers, architects, bankers, invst. mngt, const. mngt, etc.) and then there is their is the "tangential" bucket (where I think you are getting the attention from) that includes urban planners, lawyers, gov't people, etc. Still, with limited post-UG experience, getting called for interviews is a good sign.
It could be the case you are blowing it at the interview, perhaps not showing proper "cultural fit" (which is what you are describing tbh), or it could be that they just have more experienced candidates in the pool and they get picked for 2nd rounds over you (tbh, some of both could be happening). Best advice I'd give would be to learn and be part of the development community as much as possible. Join groups like NAIOP and ULI and get heavily involved (you may need to out of pocket this if your employer won't cover), go to all the meetings, get on committees, etc. Also read tons of local and national real estate press (like GlobeSt., Bisnow, and your local biz journal and/or RE paper), the goal is to sound like a developer and know what's going on (this can be tons important in coming across competent in an interview).
Otherwise, maybe need to jump to something more development adjacent (like lending), but I think you are a lot closer to your goal than you realize. Also, there are firm that are probably more "progressive" than norm (depends on your local market tbh), so finding one that is a good cultural fit could help also (hang around ULI......).
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