Had a call with a recruiter back in end of July for a Risk Analyst in Real Estate Credit role with a private multi billion dollar insurance company. Not the sexiest I know, but I am hoping this will not be perceived as a back office role.
Fast forward to Monday of this week and the external recruiter reaches back out to me after 5 weeks. Of course, I ask for details and get it out of him that the number one guy had an offer extended to him but declined, second guy backed out, and well 3rd guy is me (Hooray! ha).
Not surprisingly, they are looking to move fairly quickly at this point and have scheduled a call for this coming Monday with the hiring manager who has an MFE from Cal.
I was told to be prepared to at least touch on the current conditions of the residential mortgage market and also my SAS experience (don’t have a ton but heard I just need a basic understanding).
Does anyone here have positive thoughts on the current condition of the US residential real estate market? Because I am personally not too sanguine on it.
I have used SAS before, but honestly prefer Excel with Data Analysis Tool Pak add-on, solver, etc. Obviously do not want to say that I am not really a fan of it to the HM but are there any good resources I can use over the weekend to touch up and acquire a basic understanding of SAS?
Sorry for the long post, but any feedback is greatly appreciated!
First, ask him why he got a degree from such a hacksaw program. Regarding the “state of the residential real estate market”, that is a really broad topic. You should just read as many recent articles as you can about that, so you have something intelligent to talk about. You should be able to lead the conversation to areas of your knowledge.
Most importantly, you should review everything that you stated in your resume, and be able to answer any questions about those topics in depth. A successful interview is not necessarily one where you know all the answers, but one where you can talk in an intelligent way about things and make you seem like someone who can grow into the role.
Great advice! Plan to do all today, minus asking the question about his hacksaw MFE hahaha. Did not look at anything SAS related. Used it in college and during a paid internship pretty minimally. ie ran simple regressions. Just have to be honest about that because that is something as mentioned is not that you can just pick up overnight and if I was given an offer, it is doubtful that it could be proficient in that time.
I read a recent article about credit risk and defaults on first mortgages, over all credit risk levels and about 7-8 interesting trends we are seeing compared to previous years. Wrote all these notes down so no worries there. It is a phone interview after all, so I will be able to leverage notes I have written.
FWIW, the call lasted exactly 30 mins, was pretty technical in nature and did not claim to know any programming languages beyond my true ability. There was one question he asked me that I didn’t know the answer to but other than that, I had a correct reply for anything he asked.
I know I won’t get an offer though. He cut it short at 30 mins and said HR would get back to me. (highly doubt this occurs and if it does, probably won’t be good news). Oh well, I am trying to move from my current city anyway and this role would be local.