Here's how to land a spot in real-estate giant CBRE's ultra-competitive sales internship program that's harder to get into that Harvard

• CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate brokerage and services firm, has many different internships. Its largest is the national sales internship program, which pairs interns with brokerage teams.
• It received 4,500 applications for 2020, and CBRE expects to make 175 placements in the internship program.
• We spoke to Elisha Bejsovec, the CBRE program manager for campus recruiting who runs the national program, and Lew Horne, CBRE's president of the Pacific Southwest division, about how to nab a spot.
• They suggest having prior internships in the field or joining their schools' real estate society or club. Horne said that they're "laser-focused" on attributes, because "you can train the skills."
• Resume keywords like real estate, leadership, networking, and analytics demonstrate that an applicant may have the attributes that the firm is searching for.
• One way to have a better chance is by networking with the local CBRE brokers and teams. Bejsovec said that many brokers would be glad to meet with potential interns.
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In an increasingly professionalized real estate world, the right stamp of approval for a job-hunting student or early-career professional can be crucial.

While internships at Wall Street giants may draw more attention on campus, real-estate firms have launched their own, ultra-competitive programs.

CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate brokerage and services firm, has six different internship opportunities for recent college grads, from finance and valuations work to project management and tech, as well as a range of opportunities for MBAs and other graduate students, but its largest is the national sales internship.

Launched five years ago, the paid internship runs for eight weeks in the summer and is open to undergraduate juniors and seniors, as well as graduate students. It operates in 15 markets around the country, with the size of the class of interns proportional to the size of the market. Almost all of CBRE's largest markets are represented, except for New York, which has its own, separate sales internship program.

The national sales internship program has an acceptance rate that's comparable to Harvard's undergrad program: just under 4%. It received 4,500 applications for 2020, and is projecting to make 175 placements in the internship program. Interns are paired with a brokerage team and also work in small groups on a competitive project, pitching their own insight to solve problems on CBRE's actual deals in progress.

We spoke to Elisha Bejsovec, the CBRE program manager for campus recruiting who runs the national program, and Lew Horne, CBRE's president of the Pacific Southwest division, about the program, and their tips to get a spot in the intern class, and how to get hired at the end of the eight weeks.

"It's a potential free look for them and a potential free look for us," Horne told Business Insider (free look is a real estate synonym for due diligence period). They did not disclose the interns' salary, but said it was "competitive" with similar programs.

Use these resume keywords to stand out

The internship recruiting process starts at the end of the summer, when CBRE post the job opening on its website and on-campus job portals. Bejsovec and her team hold info sessions at some universities with strong real estate, sales or entrepreneurship programs, but they open up applications to a wide range of students.

Last year, the class of 135 interns came from 77 different universities. Each localized program recruits mostly from nearby universities - Horne said that in greater LA, that means USC and UCLA send many students.

Bejsovec and Horne said that while academic performance is an important part of the selection, their top priorities for applicants are that they have demonstrated interest in commercial real estate, and that they have the right attributes for a sales job.

"GPA is great, but a lot of time it doesn't tell the whole story," Bejsovec said.

Bejsovec and Horne suggest having prior internships in the field or joining their schools' real estate society or club as great ways to show a passion for real estate. Even better, if the intern was in the leadership for their school's real estate society as that indicates they have the right characteristics.

Horne said that they're "laser-focused" on attributes, because "you can train the skills and the knowledge comes with reps." Resume keywords like real estate, leadership, networking, and analytics demonstrate that an applicant may have the attributes that the firm is searching for.

Network with local CBRE brokers to gain an edge

One way to have a better chance of selection is by networking with the local CBRE brokers and teams. Bejsovec said that many brokers would be glad to meet with potential interns, and that it could pay off with your application. CBRE has a referral tracking process for the intern program, which is a source of many of their applicants.

"This is a relationship-oriented business," Bejsovec said. "It's better for you to be known than to just send your application out there and hope it gets accepted."

The application is kept open for a few months, and applicants should hear back with next steps in January. For those that move forward, the next step is a virtual interview: a pre-recorded interview with the students responding to a set of questions that they read off of their computer screen. This can be awkward, but the awkwardness is a feature, not a bug, as it can "show them in their element" while also overcoming "some adversity," Bejsovec said.

The last step is an onsite "superday," where finalists come into their local office and interview directly with the teams they would potentially work for. This day is also where the recruiting team matches interns with the teams that make most sense for their interests by asset class.

Internal networking is the X factor

The internship can turn into a full-time role; 20% of interns were converted to full time in 2018. These offers are not always in brokerage, which Bejsovec said is a "tough place to start as a young person," and interns have been hired into research, valuations, and client management as well.

Success at CBRE is, in many ways, typical to success in any setting. Bejsovec and Horne encourage students to make sure they come in on time and leave with the rest of the team, to ask questions and learn, and to do high-quality work.

The X factor, same with the application, is an intern's ability to network outside of their direct team at CBRE, as many interns are actually hired onto teams other than the sales team. Bejsovec and Horne highlighted CBRE's affinity networks, like its military network, LGBT network, and women's network, as ways that interns have been able to make those valuable connections.

The final group project is another way for interns to stand out. Ryan Gurman, a 2017 intern, won the Greater Los Angeles County/ Orange County contest with a pitch about a retail shopping center that CBRE was working on. The client actually followed through on Gurman's pitch, and Gurman was hired. He was awarded CBRE West LA's 2019 Rookie of the Year award.

Even for those that don't get converted to full-time roles, Horne said that the program has built an "industry-level reputation," and alums are sprinkled among CBRE's competitors like JLL and Cushman and Wakefield, more boutique firms, private equity and VCs. Bejsovec credits the interns themselves, who have built relationships at the program that have gotten them jobs later on.