Get a Warm Intro at CBRE, JLL, Colliers or M&M
Cold applications to brokerage teams vanish into a portal. The honest fix: find one broker or analyst who already shares your background and let them walk your name in.
Find your warm intro →Free · No sign-up · See results in ~10 seconds
✍️ Ready-to-send intro“Hi - we both studied at [your school]. I’d love to hear about your path to a company you are targeting before I apply…”
… plus everyone else in your network who can put in a good word.
See who can refer you in - pick your target company:
Why a referral moves the needle in CRE brokerage
Commercial real estate runs on relationships, so the hiring does too. A broker who gets your resume from an analyst they trust reads it in a different frame than one pulled from a stack of applicants. Junior CRE roles often are not posted at all; teams add an analyst when someone vouches for them.
These four firms are not monoliths. CBRE Capital Markets, JLL, Colliers, and Marcus and Millichap each run as dozens of semi-independent local teams built around a lead producer. You are not applying to a company, you are joining a team, and the person who forwards your name usually sits on that exact team.
How to find the right broker or analyst to reach
The mistake is messaging the biggest name at the biggest office. Aim one level down and one level more specific.
- Target the office and product group, not the logo. Search for people who sit in the metro you want and cover your asset class (multifamily, industrial, office, or debt), not just anyone wearing the brand.
- Read the deal tombstones. Broker teams publish closed transactions naming every member. The analyst listed last is junior enough to reply and close enough to the hiring decision to matter.
- Match on a past employer, not only a school. Many CRE analysts came up through the same feeders, a REIT, a lender, or an appraisal shop. A shared prior firm is often a warmer thread than a shared campus.
- Pick the associate over the rainmaker. The named partner ignores cold notes. The two-years-in analyst who shares your background will actually walk your resume to the team lead.
Make the intro cost them 30 seconds
When you reach out, lead with what you share, not what you want. Open with the school, the old firm, or a specific deal of theirs you read, then ask one small thing: 15 minutes on how they broke into their market. Do not attach a resume or ask for a job in the first message. You are asking for a conversation, which is cheap to say yes to.
Finding the right person is the tedious part. FindWarmIntros scans these firms for the brokers and analysts who actually share your school or a past employer, ranks them by how strong the connection is, and drafts the opening line, so you spend your time on the conversation instead of the search.