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How to Build Rapport in the CRE Workplace

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Regardless of what role you have in the CRE field, the ability to build rapport among your colleagues is crucial. Not only does it help propel your career, but it also lubricates and strengthens team connections and interaction.

However, while this is a skill that comes naturally for some, others must learn how to build these strong connections and affinity. Fortunately, with just a few simple tricks up your sleeve, virtually anyone can build rapport with fellow CRE professionals and co-workers.

What Is Rapport?

One of the cornerstone skills needed in commercial real estate is business communication. And workplace rapport is the technique of opening up more effective communication through relationships and understanding.

Sometimes referred to as a connection or spark, rapport is what makes people more likely to listen to you and give your idea a chance. In this reciprocal relationship, your colleagues better understand your point of view, are more inclined to trust and like you, and will generally feel at ease around you.

This matters so much in a workplace environment, because our own success in business is often dependent upon others. And the success of the company or organization as a whole is dependent upon our ability to collaborate and work together.

Rapport in the office makes these collaborations and interactions more effective and productive. This vital interpersonal communication and business asset allows us to more effectively exchange thoughts and ideas in many aspects of our job. Whether it’s selling, negotiating, interviewing, or any other form of interaction, our ability to build rapport and foster eager cooperation is vital in many scenarios.

Secrets to Workplace Rapport

If you want to improve your ability to build rapport, internalize these techniques. Practice them. Develop them. And then begin implementing them across your workplace interactions as you see your success in communication improve.

1. Actively Listen

Active listening is a powerful communication hack that allows you to better understand those around you so you may better relate to them. By being present in the conversation, looking people in the eye, listening to understand rather than respond, and noticing non-verbal cues, you will become a better listener. In turn, you will better understand the intent behind the words as well as the kind of person you are dealing with.

And here’s the secret: when others feel you have truly heard them, they will like you more.

2. Don’t Overlook Casual Conversation

Especially in a workplace environment, it can be tempting to overlook casual chit chat. After all, this is business. And you don’t want to waste time, yours or theirs. But casual conversation is a powerful lubricator and rapport builder.

If you are interviewing for a job and the interviewer starts with some casual small talk, this is your chance to find commonalities and better relate. If your co-worker drops by to check on a project, mention what you did over the weekend or bring up the game their favorite team just played. If not carried to extremes, these little moments of casual banter are the building blocks of strong relationships and rapport.

3. Spend Quality Time

When appropriate, schedule quality time with workplace contacts. Going to lunch or having a genuine talk in the lunch room can take your casual connections to the next level.

4. Ask Good Questions

Especially early in a relationship or at networking events, your ability to ask creative questions will help you shortcut the relationship building process. Here are some helpful questions to bring up:

What subject would you most like to be an expert in?
If someone were to say you had a superpower, what would it be?
What kind of books do you like reading?
What are some skills you learned as a child that you continue to use today?
What’s your personality type?
What’s your proudest accomplishment?

5. Be Genuine

Nothing can put a damper on a relationship like inauthenticity. If there is a hint of being fake or trying to present yourself in the best light, it will hamper your rapport. Above all, be authentic.

If you can’t find common ground that you are truly interested in, then learn more about an interest of theirs to become genuinely interested in it. Don’t pretend to be the expert, but open yourself up to learning about their passion.

This sets you up for some great questions. And you’ll both learn more about each other in the process.

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Learn To Love Your Job Again

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We fall in – and out – of love with our jobs all the time. Though we rarely think of it that way.

Remember the butterflies of excitement you had on your first day? You loved those weekly staff meetings, adored your training, and couldn’t wait to chat with new co-workers on coffee breaks.

It was when the honeymoon period ended that things changed. You started thinking “Really, this all over again?” when you woke up. Small irritations turned into large ones, and you started getting coffee at a different time to avoid Dave in Accounting.

Before you hand in your resignation letter, take a moment to realize that quitting isn’t your only option. It’s not possible to always love your job, but you can love the idea of working at it, and you can love different aspects of it.

How To Love Your Job Again

1. Is It Your Job Or Your Boss?

You might not want to leave your job, you may just want to leave your boss. One study found that 50 percent of employees left their job “to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career.”

If you find yourself in this situation, but still really enjoy the company you work for, you may want to entertain the option of switching departments. Give yourself opportunities to work with other teams and see if it’s your manager or it’s the job you don’t like before you hand in your resignation. Small changes can make a significant impact in helping you love your job again.

2. Learn Something Different

If you have been doing the same tasks for the past 5 years, it is very possible you are simply bored and uninspired. Challenge yourself by learning something new and exciting.

Offer to help out a different department. Volunteer to take on new responsibilities. Take a course to advance your skills. Attend professional development seminars. Whatever you do, make sure it is interesting to you. It will help you look at your role in a new light. Boredom will never help you love your job, but being excited about something new will.

3. Ask For What You Want

Instead of waiting for your exit interview to mention all the things you wish you had been offered – ask for them! Your manager is probably not a mind reader, and they cannot provide you with what they didn’t know you were interested in.

Speak out about your goals and make your case for change so you can love your job again. Ask to be put in charge of a project. Talk about your dream role. If you are looking for a flexible schedule or salary increase, ask for that too. Have these conversations first instead of assuming your only option is to quit.

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Define Company Culture

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Company culture is a hot topic right now. Since 2020, COVID-19 has made a BIG shift in this area for many organizations. In this blog post, we are going to define company culture, how it works, and why it’s important!

Define Company Culture

Company culture refers to the attitudes and behaviors of a company and its employees. It is evident in the way an organization’s people interact with each other, the values they hold, and the decisions they make.

Company culture encompasses a variety of elements, including work environment, company mission, leadership style, values, ethics, expectations, and goals.

How Does It Work?

A company’s culture may be expressly and deliberately cultivated, or it may simply result from the accumulation of decisions made over time. With a strong company culture, employees understand the expected outcomes and behaviors and act accordingly.

Some companies have a team-based culture that emphasizes employee participation on all levels, while other businesses have a culture where formal, traditional, or hierarchical management is valued.

When you work at a company with a traditional management style, your job responsibilities will be clearly defined, but there may not be opportunities to advance without going through a formal promotion or transfer process.

At a more casual workplace, employees often have the opportunity to take on new projects, and additional roles, as time permits.

One example of company culture can be seen at Netflix, where it is encapsulated in their philosophy of “people over process.” In its company culture document, Netflix spells out its company values: judgment, communication, curiosity, courage, passion, selflessness, innovation, inclusion, integrity, and impact. These values are expected to be upheld by employees in every action and interaction, resulting in a creative, collaborative, and successful organization.

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Top 3 Steps to Help You Identify Your Dream Career

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You don’t always have to hit rock bottom to figure out your career path, but there are some things you need to learn about yourself if you want to identify your dream career.

These three steps might come immediately, or they might take years to uncover. Either way, consider them without judgment or blame for not knowing the answers, but with curiosity.

1. Identify Your Strengths

Stop everything you’re doing and take the Strengths Finder assessment today. It’s the most valuable assessment tool I’ve used. Know your strengths to the finest degree to discern what job is best for you.

According to Donald Clifton, founder of Strengths Finder, we’re the happiest when we get to use our strengths on a daily basis.

2. Who Is In Your Support System?

Another step is to identify your dream career is to think about who is in your support system. Sure, you might not have enemies in your job search, but it’s important to know who’s in your inner support circle. Sometimes, it can take a while to identify who is your ally, but pay attention to who gives you strength and who squashes your ambition.

Notice all of your conversations. Who is continually supportive? Who encourages you? Who makes you feel afraid or anxious?

Many people feel scared when you are reaching and leaping towards an edge, and they will project their own fears onto you. Don’t let them. Make a point to cut them off (kindly) or resist from talking to that person about your “big, hairy, audacious goals.”

3. Pinpoint Your Goals

Where do you want to go? It’s a big question and if you don’t have the answer now, ask yourself every day until it starts to unfold. Take out a big huge notebook (the kind you’d buy a kindergartener) and colored sharpies and let your creativity flow.

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Top 10 CRE Career Paths to Choose From

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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

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Top Networking Skills for 2022

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You know that networking is in your best interest and that it can open up many doors, be them professional, social, or personal. However, networking is much easier said than done.

Unless you possess the right networking skills, you’ll have difficulty making personal or professional connections, as well as using them to advance your career. Wondering what those top networking skills might be and how you can learn them? That’s just what we’ll cover in this article!

Active Listening

Active listening is more than just hearing. The act involves paying uttermost attention to what the speaker is saying, following up with clarifying questions where relevant and necessary, and making sure you got the essence of the conversation.

Communication Skills

Communication is, if you ask us, the most important networking skill. You can be funny, insightful, skillful, and intelligent, and it would all be in vain if you can’t effectively communicate with people.

For this reason, when you’re networking, be mindful of the ways you convey, interact with others, and even tackle issues and discussions that may come up during the conversation. This includes your tone of voice, the language you use, and even your urgency to speak over others. Those are all elements that can make or break your networking.

Confidence

If you’re going to go to a place full of strangers or acquaintances with the goal of creating professional and social ties, then you definitely need confidence!

As a skill, confidence defines how sure you are about what you say, what you do (or plan on doing), and your decisions. Ways you can practice your confidence are by maintain eye contact with the speaker, speak in a friendly tone, or prepare something to discuss in advance so that you don’t stumble on your words.

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Personal Connections Land Jobs

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Personal connections land jobs; everybody knows that. Hence, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Indeed, in surveys, it’s typical for roughly half of employees to say that they found their job through a friend, family member, or other type of social network contact. But not all connections are likely to be equal. In a job search, talking to people and networking is clearly important, but who are the best people to talk to?

How social networks matter for getting jobs—and all other sorts of life outcomes—has long pre-occupied sociologists and networks researchers. The classic answer to the question of which contacts matter for finding a job starts with the work of Mark Granovetter, who in the late 1960s and early 1970s interviewed a few hundred Boston-area job seekers. To his surprise, Granovetter found that people were much more likely to land jobs from information passed on by people they weren’t particularly close to. In interviews, Granovetter asked people whether a friend had told them about their current job, and time and again people said things along the lines of, “Not a friend, an acquaintance.”

Granovetter began systematically tracking the “strength” of the social tie between job seekers and the people giving them employment leads, and found that of those who found jobs through contacts, only 17% saw their contact “often,” while 56% saw the contact “occasionally,” and 28% saw him “rarely.” The punch line: the people in your life who you don’t know too well are the ones who often matter the most when it comes time to find a job.

Plenty of other studies since have backed up the importance of what Granovetter dubbed “weak ties.” The general interpretation is that people you don’t know too well tend to belong to social groups that aren’t your own. They therefore have access to information—including about jobs—that you wouldn’t otherwise come across. The people who you’re closest to, your “strong ties,” typically move in the same social circles as you do. Most jobs they can tell you about, you could have found out about from someone else anyway. As painful as it can be to talk to people you don’t know too well about the fact that you’re looking for work, those could very easily prove to be the most fruitful conversations.

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How Do Recruiters Work?

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ou know that the economy is crazy right now, that the CRE talent war is escalating, and that it can be challenging to find the right hire or open position. You know that recruiters are said to be the best way to cut through the white noise and identify the ideal opportunity. But what you may not know is how recruiters work.

There is a lot of mystery surrounding the art and science of headhunting. But really, the average, effective recruiting firm follows a basic process to match the best talent with the best positions. So, if you’ve ever wondered just how a recruiter goes about making these matches, keep reading. Let’s look at key elements that make up just how recruiters work.

What Do Recruiters Do?

Of course, recruiters match talent with open positions. But just what is the process of effective recruiting?

As a rule, recruiters maintain a database of professionals, whether on the bench or currently employed. They routinely make contact with the people in this network to discuss opportunities, industry needs, compensation norms, and other strategic insights.

In other words, they stay in the know. They are on the front lines of hiring for their industry, and when a position comes open, they can leverage their database to yield a slate of qualified candidates. These databases can be sorted by a myriad of filters and parameters, based on the specifications provided by the clients.

By analyzing resumes and advising both employers and candidates, the recruiter acts as a go-between and matchmaker. They are both a strategic advisor and your inside scoop.

How Recruiters Work for Candidates

If you are a professional interested in working with a recruiter, you need to understand how recruiters work for you and just what it means to work with a recruiter as a candidate.

First off, it’s important to note that recruiters technically work for the company doing the hiring. In other words, they are paid by the employer, not the candidate. This means they are free for you. And though you don’t cut them a check, you can avail yourself of numerous services through the process.

When you submit your resume or CV to a recruiter, be accurate about your skills, compensation expectations, etc. When a recruiter learns of an opening, the first thing they will likely do is search their database. If the position is offering $100,000 annual salary, but you’ve said your minimum is $110,000, your resume likely won’t come up.

When a recruiter surfaces your resume as a potential match, they will reach out to you, typically via phone, but often via email, too. Talk freely with them about your expectations and goals, work/life balance needs and company culture requirements. Recruiters guard the confidentiality of everyone they speak to, and they can be a great sounding board for what you would like from your next career move.

If they choose to present you to the client, they may not reach back out immediately. They are likely discussing your qualifications with the client and waiting for definite feedback. Don’t bug them, but do reach out after a few days to get a status update if you hear nothing back. When you are selected for an interview, a recruiter will likely help you prepare. Listen, ask questions, and take advantage of this free resource.

How Recruiters Work for Employers

If you represent a company in need of rockstar talent, developing a relationship with a recruiter could be your smartest move. But how recruiters work for you may not be clear just yet.

To start with, there are two types of recruiters: contingent and retained. Retained recruiters are typically reserved for high-level, C-suite positions. Retained recruiters are paid up front or on a schedule. For entry-level to middle-senior positions, contingent recruiters are more common. Rather than being paid for their effort, they are only paid for results.

A contingent recruiter in the CRE industry will closely study your candidate requirements and put forward only the best candidates. Because they only get paid if their candidate is hired (typically 30-90 days after to ensure a long-term fit), and because hiring companies sometimes field candidates from multiple recruiters, contingency firms are highly incentivized to surface the best match possible. And they are highly efficient at doing so.

And because they are paid only after their candidate is hired, there is no risk for a company to work with them. It’s exciting to realize that you can maximize your recruitment reach by working with multiple contingency recruiters and source the best match, risk free. While you consider the most qualified candidates, the recruiter will reach out to them on your behalf for clarifying info and to align expectations.

Recruiters are trusted partners in the hiring or job search process. By better understanding how recruiters work and what they can do for you, you’ll be able to get the maximum results and ensure long-term success in your career or company.

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Answering The “What Is Your Desired Salary?” Question

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What’s your desired salary? It’s a question that can make any job candidate’s stomach drop, whether they’re reading it on an application or hearing it from an interviewer. And I completely understand the stress around this—you don’t want to give a lowball answer and have to settle for less money than you’re worth, but you also don’t want to seem like you have crazy-high, unrealistic expectations.

Here’s what you need to know about answering the desired salary question in the way that will benefit you most in the long run.

Define Desired Salary

Desired salary is simply the amount of money you’d like to make at your new job. It’s also the realistic amount of money you expect to make at your new job based on your level of skill and experience. (Otherwise, we’d probably all have a desired salary of $10 million.)

When a potential employer asks you this question, they’re expecting an honest, realistic answer—but giving your answer too soon could actually end up hurting your chances of making the amount of money you’re worth. More on that in a minute. First, let’s talk about how to figure out your true desired salary.

Ways To Determine Your Desired Salary

Before you can even think about giving a concrete answer to this question on an application or in an interview, you should have an actual number in mind—even if you don’t reveal that number right away (or at all). You should know what you’re aiming for so you can be confident about the salary offers you will and won’t accept. But I get that it can be difficult to land on a number or range, so here are a few factors that will help you figure it out:

1. Research Is KEY

A quick Google search can usually tell you the industry standards for salary in your desired position, and most job search websites will let you search for the standards in your geographical location as well. Sometimes pay ranges vary depending on state or region. The size of the company you’re looking at and its level of success will also affect the pay scale.

Another way to research is by asking other employees in similar roles what their pay is like, but keep in mind that it’s personal information that not everyone might be comfortable sharing. You could also ask any recruiters in the field (who don’t work at the company you’re applying to) if they can share the average salaries they see for the type of position you want.

2. Determine Your Skill Level And Experience

If you know me, you know I’m a big believer that you don’t have to get a four-year degree to get a great-paying job—and I stand by that! But education and training will still be taken into consideration at many companies, depending on the role. Having more years of experience working in a given industry will usually mean higher pay too. So, even if you don’t have a ton of education but you’ve spent years getting hands-on experience in jobs that are related to the one you want now, your pay should reflect that.

Another thing to consider is skill level. Of course, you can expect to be paid less for entry-level skill than for high skill. But skill level isn’t necessarily equivalent to the amount of time you’ve spent working in an industry—some people graduate from college with a higher level of skill than somebody who’s already been working in the field for a while. Be honest with yourself about your skill level, and if you know you’ve got a competitive edge, factor that into the amount you think you should be paid.

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The CRE Talent War Is Escalating

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Companies are shifting compensation plans and recruitment strategies as the CRE talent war escalates. Since the downturn in 2020, the commercial real estate industry has bounced back, albeit amidst a shortage in qualified talent that has seen rising salaries and restructured expectations.

The Talent Shortage

The labor shortage has extended to the commercial real estate (CRE) industry, and companies are facing the reality that it will likely escalate in 2022. Already, approximately half of CRE companies report hiring challenges have impacted their company moderately or severely, according to a recent CPE 100 survey.

In the same survey, approximately half of industry leaders reported frustration with the available talent pool, stating it is adequate for some searches but inadequate for others. Additionally, a full 25% of respondents said the talent pool simply doesn’t have what they need for their job openings in commercial real estate.

As a result, many companies have been forced to shift recruitment policies over the past year or more to be more flexible and diverse in their expectations. As more and more openings chase fewer and fewer qualified professionals, the CRE talent war escalates.

Rising Compensation Expected to Continue

Professionals in all CRE roles can expect salaries and compensation packages to continue rising. Talent is at a premium, and firms must reset their expectations to stay competitive. Nearly 90% of real estate firms offered merit bonuses in 2021. Attracting CRE rockstars is requiring companies to change their work environments, as well as role expectations and pay.

One way firms are changing their expectations is in the area of diversity in hiring. It’s becoming more and more apparent that companies want to hire diverse candidates, yet those candidates come at a premium, simply because they’re hard to find. Likewise, approximately half of CRE companies are changing their talent management plans to attract younger talent.

Meanwhile, overall, salaries have yet to flatline. It is likely that companies will continue to adjust to the CRE talent war, raising salaries throughout 2022. A new trend in the CRE space is for hiring companies to offer equity, even to lower-level positions to make them more competitive.

Countering the Shortage

Creative strategies are called for to counter the shortage. Companies that allow for more remote-work flexibility and an enhanced focus on work-life balance will attract a larger pool of job prospects. Competitive CRE firms are also renewing their push for higher retention levels among existing employees. Those who recruit from within, ask for employee referrals, and actively leverage personal networks, both online and in person, will have a competitive edge.

However, while in-house HR teams and hiring efforts can still have some success, successfully sourcing from a shrinking pool in these highly competitive times requires an edge. And maintaining a working relationship with a proven CRE recruiter is a proven tactic for companies to combat this talent shortage.

Some of the key advantages of going with a professional headhunting firm include:

Trust and confidentiality
Company advocacy
Help with role structuring
Better talent access
Repeated hiring success

With the CRE talent shortage on the rise, short-term solutions won’t do. Competitive firms in the commercial real estate space are looking to the future with the assumption that the talent shortage won’t resolve in the near future. With long-term flexibility and strategic planning, future unknowns will pose less of a challenge.

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