Searching for a professional job in commercial real estate is not an easy task. I know from personal experience. I started my career on the residential development side of the business. After 12 years, I decided to return to school to make a transition to the commercial, institutional investment side of the industry.
I was fortunate enough to go to a great school with a strong alumni network and good brand recognition. Nonetheless, I soon discovered – or at least the realization hit me – early in my two-year graduate studies that I was going into a niche field with only a select number of positions available each year. The selective nature of my new-found career path meant that 1) I had to start my job search on day one of my Masters program, and 2) I needed to be made aware of every job available in my niche.
Finding Professional Jobs in CRE
The issue was, there weren’t many good job boards for my niche. I relied on company career pages, my university’s job board, a general job board, and a commercial real estate job board focused on my niche. Unfortunately, all of the options available to me were frustrating for various reasons. Either the board was tedious and cumbersome to use (i.e. poorly designed), not mobile-friendly (i.e. I couldn’t search unless at a computer screen), filled with non-target jobs (i.e. way too many property management and design jobs), or filled with non-salaried or low-paying jobs (i.e. real estate agent jobs).
In the end, I relied heavily on my network, went to every company information sessions on campus, tracked two or three jobs boards daily online, and landed my dream job. But in the process, I came to the conclusion that the professional real estate community needed better.
A Better Way to Source Jobs
So over the last year, Michael (my co-contributor over at AdventuresinCRE.com) and I have been working on a commercial real estate job board targeted at real estate acquisitions, development, asset management, portfolio management, finance, advisory, consulting, and capital raising professionals. We recently wrote a post explaining the what, why, and how of the Adventures in CRE Job Board.