Building Careers

7 Tips for Career Success in CRE

So, you’ve chosen a career in commercial real estate and want to make the most of it. How do you climb that ladder and become the best in your league? How do you ensure career success in your current CRE field?

Regardless of what specialty or focus your career path is in, commercial real estate is a demanding field that requires dedication, commitment, and growth. It is crucial for CRE professionals to be ever-learning, ever-advancing, and ever-evolving for maximum career success and advancement.

Some of these principles hold true for whatever career path you take. Others are especially important in CRE. If you’ve made a commitment to succeed, here are seven tips to help you get the most out of your career.

1. Come Prepared to Learn

Like most professions, working in CRE means learning a variety of skills, information sets, and best practices. But much of what makes you successful now might change in coming years. Therefore, it is imperative that you are prepared to learn on the job, even after you have become well-established in your field.

Continuous learning has been directly tied to success on the job. It enables you to adapt and become multifunctional, engaged, and prepared for the unexpected. In the long run, it positions you to excel in your career and be promoted in time.

2. Cultivate Better Communication

One of the keys to career success in any field is effective business communication. Proactively and effectively communicating with your direct reports and superiors facilitates a more functional workplace and healthier relationships. These in turn directly contribute to your success. Some keys to improving your communication include:

  • Use clarity
  • Err on the side of over communication
  • Be open and honest
  • Emphasize a communication culture

3. Achieve Specific Goals

Especially in the world of commercial real estate, you are not paid just to clock in and clock out. Your career advancement hinges on your ability to identify and achieve goals central to your company’s mission. Your employer will recognize your profitability if you focus on achieving these goals, both long term and short term. And your career will benefit from it.

4. Demonstrate Initiative

If you want to actually go places in your career, take initiative. Your growth, adaptability, work relationships, and overall success depend on you. It’s up to you then to demonstrate initiative to succeed in your career. Some ways to do this include:

  • Ask for guidance
  • Offer help
  • Volunteer
  • Educate yourself
  • Be a cost saver

5. Manage Up

When you manage your boss instead of waiting to be managed, you will become far more valuable and likely to succeed in your career. Really impress your boss by getting to know him or her, avoiding office politics, and bringing solutions rather than just problems to the table. When you are detailed and proactive in solving problems for your managers, your career success will be inevitable.

6. Evaluate Yourself

Rather than waiting for your annual evaluation, be your own evaluator! Identify objectives and goals, and then create a task list to achieve them. At the end of each week, fill out a form or work diary to rate your progress on each of these tasks and overall goals.

You might even consider showing these work logs to your supervisors to see if they agree with your real-time self-evaluations. And doing so will also impress upon them your dedication to progressing and improving in your career.

7. Act

Talk comes cheap. There’s a saying managers used once upon a time: “Show me the baby, don’t tell me about the labor pains.” While this antiquated quip may sound cold, what’s beneath it is an inherent valuation on putting feet to your plans and ideas. When you do what you say, it goes a long way towards building your credibility and long-term prospects for success. When you put in the effort to make real gains, it translates into respect and meaningful contributions at work.

Generating real and tangible career success in CRE has so much more to do with being proactive than being lucky. By following these basic principles and tips, you can climb the ladder and achieve your career goals. It doesn’t matter where you start or what adversity you encounter. You can find fulfillment at work and create the career trajectory you want.

It’s entirely up to you!

CRE Job Market, Facing Cooldown, ‘Like 2 A.M. In A Club’

Taking the temperature of the labor market anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day presents challenges, considering huge strategic decisions tend to get pushed to the fall. But the general sentiment of analysts, brokers and recruiters interviewed for this story suggested that anxiety had already curtailed opportunities, firms were taking steps to slow down new hiring, and any significant slowdown could have significant impact on the long-term recruitment of younger talent, especially brokers.

These shifts in the job market have taken place against a backdrop of declining CRE deal volume, which dropped more than 50% from a recent record of $347B in Q4 of 2021 to $172B in Q1 of this year. Many experts predict rising interest rates will dampen enthusiasm for deals going forward.

The foreshadowing of a more difficult job market on the horizon contrasts sharply with the optimism felt at the end of 2021 and early 2022. A Bisnow/SelectLeaders survey of 130 industry HR execs from February found many expected the year to bring more jobs, higher compensation, even additional benefits; more than half expected to hire more in 2022 than 2021. And in late 2021, industry experts argued that firms, stung by labor shortages, were gearing up to pay more.

Those predictions have generally held through the first half of 2022, especially in many of the hotter sectors in CRE, such as industrial, life sciences and multifamily.

But the job market is increasingly taking a conservative turn, said Kaitlin Kincaid, Keller Augusta senior managing director, with companies becoming more thoughtful about budgets, more choosy about roles and taking more time, especially when deciding on management and executive roles and specialty positions.

Jackson Lucas Managing Partner Chris Papa, who runs a CRE-focused recruiting firm, said that there’s increasing interest in debt and equity-focused roles, as well as a demand for asset managers: It’s vital to be important with your assets during a downturn.

“I feel the changes have been in the amount of hiring,” Building Careers President Carly Glova said. “Teams are looking at whether they really need to hire someone.”

To read the full article, visit the link below.

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/top-talent/real-estates-red-hot-job-market-on-precipice-of-slowdown-113787

Top 10 CRE Career Paths to Choose From

So, you’ve decided a career in commercial real estate is just what you need to find fulfillment in your work. Good for you! But there are so many CRE career paths to choose from. Which one is for you?

Commercial Real Estate

When most people hear “commercial real estate,” they immediately conjure up images of a real estate agent posting a “for sale” sign in a yard somewhere. When they finally wrap their minds around the commercial aspect, they still tend to think in terms of either brokers or developers.

But the truth is, if you want to get into commercial real estate, you have virtually endless options to make that happen. So, before you go out and start polishing up your resume and branding yourself for that perfect CRE dream job, let’s take a step back.

Just what direction should you go? What are your options?

10 CRE Career Paths

While there are literally dozens of CRE career paths, most of them fall into a handful of categories or basic fields. Some of these may fall within your goals for your career, whereas others might simply be a bad fit for your personality type.

Before deciding on a specific field to enter, be sure to take personal inventory and weigh the pros and cons of a career in commercial real estate. Then, hone in on that part of CRE that especially inspires and fascinates you. From here, you’re prepared to dive into the varied and rich paths that make up this special industry. While this list is not comprehensive, here are 10 of the top choices for CRE careers.

1. Brokerage This is probably the most well known of the CRE career paths. There are exciting opportunities to be directly involved as intermediary between both sides of transactions. Brokers sometimes also provide other services, like investment banking, research asset management, property management, and more.

2. Property Management

Generally speaking, commercial properties require rather sophisticated management services. In this field, you may carry out services like tenant relations, maintenance, budgeting and other tasks related to managing a high-value commercial asset.

3. Construction and Development

While two separate paths, construction and development professionals tend to work closely together. Entitling parcels and managing the process of building new CRE assets can be invigorating for the creative and visionary types (development) or project and process-oriented types (construction).

4. Acquisitions

Acquisition professionals manage the sourcing, analyzing, and closing tasks for acquiring new properties, whether underperforming or performing. These are properties that produce cash flows for the company acquiring them.

5. Asset Management

Those responsible for asset management focus on strategy and oversee execution of the financial, operational, and marketing aspects of commercial real estate.

6. Leasing

If an investor/developer chooses to have an in-house leasing team, the leasing individuals will have day-to-day negotiation and lease creation/oversight responsibilities for the company and coordinating strategic efforts to develop prospective tenant relationships, which could also be done alongside an external broker.

7. Accounting

Accountants will run day-to-day management of the company’s accounting operations, including financial reports, accounting records, cash flow projections, loan draws, budget analysis, and budget reforecasting.

8. Architecture and Design

While not often in-house, architect and designers will plan and design and facilitate the execution of new buildings, expansions, renovations, or interior build-outs.

9. Valuation/Appraisal

Within the various CRE career paths, there is a distinct need for valuation professionals who appraise properties for reporting purposes, as well as loan applications, strategic estimations, and more.

10. Other

Most of the disciplines above are most commonly seen on the investor/developer or owner/operator sides of the business, but you can take your career in a myriad of other directions as well, including capital markets, investor relations, lending and portfolio management for governmental entities, academia, banks or on the corporate real estate side.

While there are other CRE career paths to follow, this list represents the most common fields. And each of these paths may vary based on geography, asset class, and other factors. By carefully considering all factors, your career in commercial real estate can be profitable and fulfilling.

Sources:

How to Find Fulfillment at Work | Building Careers (buildingrecareers.com)

How to Brand Yourself for Your CRE Dream Job | Building Careers (buildingrecareers.com)

The Pros and Cons of a Commercial Real Estate Career | Building Careers (buildingrecareers.com)

Anatomy of Commercial Real Estate Appraisal: TOP 10 Q&A Guide (rweiler.com)

Careers in Commercial Real Estate | Adventures in CRE

GlobeSt 50 Under 40 Award

Here is our selection of 50 achievers in the CRE space that are under age 40. Read their stories to see why we picked them.

When Carly Glova decided to establish a recruiting firm serving the commercial real estate industry, she knew there would be obstacles. Glova had not previously worked in a recruiting position or owned a business, and she faced the adversity of creating a niche in the historically male-dominated CRE industry. Seeing the benefits of her idea, however, Glova pressed on and in 2015, after an almost 10-year career in CRE finance, she founded executive search and recruiting firm Building Careers LLC, which aims to serve as a responsive, industry-focused and personalized hiring solution. Since its inception, Building Careers has experienced a nearly 600% increase in revenue and has doubled its headcount. As president of the company, Glova oversees business development, client and candidate management, manages recruiting and sourcing resources, and executes general business operations. Glova has made a mark on the Southern California market and has become a go-to source for hiring in the space, which has become an even more important function since the Great Resignation left the candidate pool extremely small. Glova speaks on panels and in forums regarding the hiring landscape and she has consulted on the disconnect between employer and employee motivations and how the gap can be closed. She first became interested in CRE during college, where she majored in finance and wrote her honors college thesis on CRE analysis and trends. She began her career on the East Coast with Duff & Phelps in its real estate valuation and consulting practice before moving into the private equity side of the real estate business with Lubert-Adler Real Estate Funds. Attracted by the robust commercial real estate industry in Southern California, she moved to San Diego where she worked for BioMed Realty Trust before founding Building Careers.

To view the full lineup for the 50 Under 40 award, visit the link below.

https://www.globest.com/2022/06/03/50-under-40-2/

CRE Firms: Recruitment Plans for 2022

Pandemic-era disruptions have roiled the real estate industry, but when it comes to compensation, the impact on CRE firms has just begun to be felt.

With new leverage in an era of labor shortages and increasing concern about diversity, empowered workers have made it that much harder for firms and human resources departments to find and afford the talent they want, industry recruiters and researchers say. As a Deloitte CRE survey put it, “the tight labor market is bringing workforce issues to the forefront.”

Competitiveness explains part of the shift. Everyone, it seems, is hiring at the same time. Per CEL data, 66% of private firms and 58% of public firms are hiring, and 78% of all firms expect to have a net increase in headcount when the year is done. That’s a sharp rebound from 2020, when 1 in 4 firms implemented a hiring freeze.

“Salaries haven’t yet flattened out, but I am not sure how high they will go,” said Carly Glova, president of Building Careers, a commercial real estate talent firm. “Companies are slowly adjusting to the higher compensation packages, so there may be a continued adjustment period into 2022.”

Commercial real estate firms also stumble a bit when it comes to hiring young talent. CEL research finds that 48.3% of firms will likely change their talent management plans specifically to attract younger workers.

Building Careers’ Glova said that despite the potential awkwardness of making equity part of new compensation discussions, opportunities for equity are becoming more readily available and tied to specific deal metrics, becoming a more prominent part of the compensation package.

Remote working, and the ability to do so, has also factored into the industry’s wide-ranging talent search. Not that many senior positions and hires have problems with receiving or demanding remote work privileges, especially in tech-related roles, while junior roles have a higher bar to clear to earn a similar schedule.

Ultimately, the in-office issue is part of the larger, and immediate, need for talent in the industry, from life sciences to acquisitions managers. A worker shortage at a moment when the industry is pivoting and becoming more technologically complex means that experience is in even higher demand than usual.

“[Firms] are looking for people with specific skill sets that can ramp up quickly as most don’t have time to train entry-level people,” Glova said. “Candidates with more experience are more sought after.”

Read More: https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/top-talent/cre-talent-crunch-creating-compensation-reset-to-nab-next-generation-stars-111167?utm_source=outbound_pub_6&utm_campaign=outbound_issue_53658&utm_content=outbound_link_2&utm_medium=email

The Rise of Life Sciences Real Estate

Recent life sciences real estate reports paint a picture of overwhelming demand and a great opportunity for new developers. The rise of life sciences real estate reports show a record $26B of venture capital funding poured into the sector in the first six months of 2021, according to Newmark, setting loose scores of well-capitalized startups seeking lab space. CBRE found that the 15.6M SF of speculative lab construction underway nationwide is nearly 30% leased, signaling developers can’t keep up. The overall vacancy rate for the top 12 biotech clusters, per CBRE, is just 5.6%.

But the reality is a select few developers have been able to cash in. In addition to difficulties finding talent, and the special requirements and expertise required to build lab spaces, the cost of such projects is prohibitive and the risk of failure is much higher than traditional office buildings.

As other smaller firms seek to expand or break into life sciences, they may run into similar problems. Newmark Associate Director of Capital Markets Research Daniel Littman said costs are a key barrier: Even office-to-lab conversions often come in at $100-$150 per SF for base building costs, and then $250-$300 per SF for a tenant retrofit. And that’s if you can acquire assets; especially in top markets, available assets are few and far between, and there is a lot of money chasing the space.

Harborth underscored that in addition to the difficulty finding talent, getting expertise in different markets is another hurdle. Real estate is such a local business, and even for firms seeking more national exposure, there’s a need to know local players. Transplant talent can’t instantly operate at the same level in a new market.

Carly Glova, president of commercial real estate talent firm Building Careers, said that the drive for talent has led some firms to bend their criteria, prioritizing life sciences experience over someone who is a perfect fit for a particular role, and sweetening employment offers, allowing staff to work remotely, increasing compensation packages or allowing for equity opportunities.

Due to the rise of life sciences real estate, there’s also a shortage of experienced architects and designers in the field.

Read More: https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/life-sciences/in-life-sciences-real-estate-gold-rush-helps-to-start-with-gold-110295

Why Don’t Women Get The Top CRE Jobs More Often If Research Shows You’re Better Choosing Them?

The lack of women in top positions at commercial real estate firms isn’t due to too many cutthroat leaders that are obsessed with the deal above all else. The problem also isn’t a lack of strong candidates or that men are naturally better leaders.

About 36.7% of people in commercial real estate are women, according to a 2020 survey by Commercial Real Estate Women Network, a networking and advocacy group for women in commercial real estate. But women only make up 9% of C-suite roles, and across all levels they earn 34% less than men. Those statistics have remained virtually unchanged for a decade.

A 2018 Pew Research study found that women see systemic barriers much more clearly than men. Just half of men, but 70% of women, believe a major reason women are underrepresented in top positions is that they have to do more to prove themselves. The same study found that more than half of Americans (57%) believe women and men have different leadership styles, but among those that do, the majority (62%) believe it doesn’t matter in their effectiveness, and more people believe women have a better approach (22%) than men (15%).

However, some representatives of this field point to a shift in company culture that’s helping create a more supportive environment to support women working in CRE to ascend the ranks. Carly Glova, president and executive recruiter at Building Careers, said that companies that promote and publicize a better work environment, including work/life balance, with HR policies and benefits that meet a larger mission statement and value, can help women succeed in this traditionally male-dominated industry. (CREW research found numerous studies showing more gender-diverse leadership corresponds with improved financial performance.)

Read More: https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/top-talent/youre-better-off-choosing-a-woman-so-why-dont-they-get-the-top-cre-jobs-more-often-108643

Carly Glova Sits in on University Panel to Talk about NAIOP

After years in the commercial real estate industry on the finance and acquisitions side, most recently with BioMed Realty, I have turned my passion for career matchmaking into a full-time (and overtime!) career. Employees are what fuels your company, perpetuates your culture, and are the resources that serve as the heart and soul of growing your business. Don’t you want to share that success with the best people possible?

Now every day I have the pleasure of getting to know folks in the commercial real estate industry and learning what their motivations are, what their idea of success looks like, and how they work best. I wake up every day excited to be able to make a difference in the trajectory of local commercial real estate contractors, consultants, developers, investors, and managers. I accomplish this by finding these companies the right mix of talent, personality, and drive that will blow their business out of the water.

I am also a NAIOP member so I can surround myself with smart, successful, go-getters. NAIOP provides advocacy, education and business opportunities by connecting members in a powerful North American network in the commercial real estate development and investment industry. NAIOP is an amazing resource for our industry, and along with the wealth of information and experience that NAIOP offers, there is never a shortage of excitement within the organization.

Here is the most recent event where I was able to sit in on a University Panel and had the chance to connect with students:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/play/0e3ifwL2TFE1S51WuupZjrrKgWaqrHB8tpq4AXAFPyN-DqfmvTsGs_bl6JoZR94FFZ0DJ-PEvi9FC1lC.RpDTJK8RUhOuSVfT?startTime=1615938785000&_x_zm_rtaid=9B3LfY4-SYWuHuUFyc8B2w.1616438184210.a7d684745e20ae58c3f169cb56140905&_x_zm_rhtaid=369

4 Solid Reasons Your Company Should Partner with a Recruitment Firm

Search firms oftentimes get a bad rap. For some companies, they’re just a necessary evil. But successful firms in commercial real estate know that throwing a failed job opening at a recruiter once in a while isn’t the path to hiring success. Instead, they partner with a recruitment firm to achieve long-term results and so much more than an occasional hire.

A Good Hire

Employee turnover is a huge concern in the different fields of CRE. In property management, for example, companies have to overcome a staggering 33% employee turnover rate. Across most industries, the national average is nearly 25%.

Why?

The reason so many employees are walking is they simply weren’t a good fit for their position. They weren’t a good hire. Sure, they looked good on paper, or maybe they interviewed well. But somehow, they weren’t the right fit.

Unfortunately, the cost of a bad hire is rather high. Estimates vary from half their annual salary to over two years annual salary when all factors are considered. But the point is that the recruitment process correlates directly to the bottom line. Efforts after the fact to improve employee retention can only go so far if your employees aren’t the right hire to begin with.

Partner with a Recruitment Firm for Lasting Results

Hiring whichever contingency recruiter comes in as the lowest bidder whenever a role opens up shows a misunderstanding for the value and strategic importance the recruiter has in your overall business strategy.

Companies who partner with a recruitment firm for the long term, means moving beyond transactional decision making to a more trusted advisory role. In this position, a recruiting agency can develop a sense of your company’s culture, dynamic, business model, and hiring needs. They ask questions a one-off recruiter might not think to ask. They can see beyond the immediate need of your current opening to needs that might develop in the future.

A trusted recruiting partner can explore alternatives in a way that mutually benefits the hiring company as well as the eventual hires, growing both in the process. Considering the organizational relationship, managerial styles, and unstated values, a recruiting partner can better find the candidates you truly need vs. what you think you need.

Key Partnership Benefits

Below are four solid benefits your company can count on when you partner with a recruitment firm as a hiring advisor.

1. Company Advocacy and Confidentiality

Partnering with a recruiting firm that shares your company’s values will allow them to evangelize what you do and keep your best interests at heart. A recruitment firm that appreciates how you value the relationship with them will be able to paint your company in the best light to potential new hires.

And sure, even a one-off contingency headhunter will sign a confidentiality agreement, but a trusted recruitment partner will truly respect that confidentiality beyond the terms on paper. Searches often involve contact with competitors. A long-term partner will value their relationship with you and go the extra mile for your confidentiality.

2. Overlooked Roles

Often, people try to replace people. A job description may be a description of the person who left, when what is truly needed is a position the hiring company hasn’t even thought of. A tried-and-true relationship with a recruitment firm means a healthier dialogue in creating the role you truly need to fill based on what your industry has to offer.

3. A Better Talent Pool

A recruitment firm maintains and grows an immense pool of qualified talent that you may not need right this moment. But you’ll know about them should the need arise. Additionally, some of the best candidates aren’t actively in the market, but may have reached out to the recruitment firm to let them know when the right role for them comes up. Your role could be the right one fore the long-term, but you won’t know it unless you tap your recruitment firm’s relationship for these “off-market” candidates. With a strong relationship in place, your “right hire” won’t slip under your nose unnoticed. And you’ll enjoy a diverse set of options.

4. Future Success

Your company relies on long-term success plans and strategies. Your best employees have likely been with you for years. Likewise, working with a recruitment firm for years is a key factor in future success. You don’t know what hiring needs you’ll have down the road. But with a trusted recruiter partnership in place, the right hire when you need it is just a call away.

Contact Us: https://www.buildingrecareers.com/contact

Contact Carly Glova: CGlova@BuildingRECareers.com