Cautious Optimism in the Commercial Real Estate Job Market
Although the number of commercial real estate job postings in February might seem as bleak as an Ithaca winter, the Job Barometer Team in the Program in Real Estate at Cornell University sees a thaw in the deep freeze in hiring that the industry experienced throughout last year. News released Friday that the nation’s unemployment rate remained stable at 9.7%, down from 10.1% in October, is hopeful. While these numbers are indicative of the condition of the US job market as a whole, job growth in other sectors should lead to job growth in the real estate sector.
The 361 job postings on major boards in February are nowhere near the high of 1081 in June 2008, but slight increases month to month since November indicate a level of stabilization that the commercial real estate job market has not experienced since March 2009. According to Michael Fratantoni, VP of the Mortgage Bankers Association, “We are definitely in a recovery now, but this has been such a severe recession – we think the financial crisis and the credit retrenchment that’s occurred means this is going to be a fairly anemic recovery.” While rapid job growth is not on the immediate horizon, the stability we are experiencing is the first step to recovery as we forge ahead in 2010.
Following the trend from Q4, positions in the field of finance remained strong in February, led by opportunities in loan underwriting, workouts, and restructuring as banks and property owners look to salvage their portfolios. These positions accounted for 41 percent of the 408 jobs posted in the finance sector (see Table 2). Additionally, employers now consider strong interpersonal and social skills to be just as important as an applicant’s technical and quantitative abilities. The capacity to reason with clients and provide clear and detailed explanations of a proposal are essential skills.
Because they are already inundated with resumes, many employers are hesitant to post quality jobs on major job boards like Monster and Career Builder. Prospective employees should look to specialty commercial real estate job boards like Select Leaders, The Ladders, ICSC and eFinancial where a higher percentage of “quality” jobs are posted. The job postings that the Job Barometer Team in the Program in Real Estate at Cornell University felt met the criteria of a typical graduate level candidate were selected, coded by function, sector and field, and then added to the annual report. The percentage of jobs that were pulled from major job boards versus those that were coded is depicted in the Table 3.
At a time when quality jobs are hard to find, job seekers must spend time searching in the right places in 2010. Building a personal brand and having a searchable resume with strong key words on social networking sites like LinkedIn is becoming more important as employers shift from posting on the job boards to searching social media sites for potential candidates. According to Jason Alba, an executive brand manager, “If you do NOTHING else, you need to have a LinkedIn Profile and strategy. Your competition is participating in social environments like LinkedIn, and many recruiters depend on LinkedIn to find talent. If you aren’t there, you aren’t being found.” To take advantage of what is likely to be a stronger year for jobs in commercial real estate, one must proactively network and have his or her name in the creative spaces employers are increasingly more likely to look.
The Job Barometer is a partnership between the Cornell Program in Real Estate and SelectLeaders, the leading Real Estate Job Site Network, and produces monthly updates and an annual report detailing the climate of the U.S. commercial real estate job market. The Job Barometer team comprises graduate students in the Cornell Program in Real Estate.
Cornell University’s Program in Real Estate is home to the Masters of Professional Studies in Real Estate degree, a comprehensive, graduate-level curriculum that educates the next generation of real estate industry leaders. Cornell is also home to the Cornell Real Estate Council, an extensive network of over 1,400 real estate industry leaders, as well as the annual Cornell Real Estate Conference, now entering its 28th consecutive year.
Author: Sam Bechthold, Graduate Student in the Program in Real Estate, Cornell University