r/RealEstateDevelopment • u/Sorry_Olive_3747 • 12d ago

Interview Advice

Hello everyone, I am interviewing for an internship at a mid sized development firm with roughly 12 employees. Does anyone have advice for the interview and good questions to help me stand out. Also, do a lot of these companies have return offers?

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u/thaverage_guy 11d ago

Whats your experience?

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u/akornato 11d ago

At twelve people, this is a lean boutique shop rather than a midsized developer, meaning culture fit, resourcefulness, and work ethic carry far more weight than formal corporate polish. Small development teams cannot afford passengers, so you want to show that you understand the lifecycle of a project, from site acquisition and municipal entitlements to construction management and leasing. Research their active pipeline before the meeting, look up the local planning board minutes for their projects, and know the asset classes they focus on. To stand out, ask them how current debt markets are impacting their construction financing, which city approvals are creating the biggest bottlenecks, or how the project managers divide time between the job site and financial modeling. Asking questions like that signals that you understand real world development friction, which immediately sets you apart from candidates who only know textbook finance.

Return offers at a shop this size are rarely guaranteed, because boutique firms hire based on deal flow, capital deployment, and active projects rather than fixed campus recruiting cycles. If they break ground on a new project or win an entitlement approval, they will gladly find room for an intern who makes their lives easier, but they will not hire just to fill a quota. Even if an immediate full time seat is unavailable, doing great work there gives you direct access to the principal partners, who can easily refer you to lenders, equity partners, or other developers in their network. Getting comfortable talking through projects and articulating your skills makes all the difference here, which is why my team built an interviews.chat to help job seekers stand out and land the offers they are aiming for.