Newly Qualified Surveyor - Clare Rimmer

Property seems to be the repository for really nice people and checked shirts, as we came across both a lot during filming!

Unlike many of the industries we covered property seems to have retained a civility of lifestyle where you don’t have to kiss goodbye to your life in order to do well and make a tidy living. It’s bonus orientated which always brings with it the prospect of huge rewards and jobs tend to come with a full suite of perks including company cars and all of the standard healthcare provisions.

It’s a job that often gets you out and about so you’re not always stuck behind a desk and it’s increasingly international, so plenty of travelling if you want it. One big plus is that you’re not tied to London in the same way you would be in an industry such as Investment Banking. So whilst many applicants will want to come to the capital to start their careers, many industry stars are based in the regions.

You’ll want to really love property, land and buildings though as some of the work can be pretty mundane and you’re unlikely to get quite the same buzz, excitement and glamour as a few of the other industries we covered.

Salaries are good in property and as mentioned previously if you get a bonus you’ll be able to challenge the lawyers and bankers. New starters in London can expect a salary in the region of 30K (25K out of London), after about 8 years you’ll be knocking on 100K in London (75K out of London).

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Clare Rimmer and I am a recently qualified quantity surveyor, I work at a company called DTZ and I have been training for approximately two years and now I am qualified.

What is Property?

The property industry or the world of surveying is about working for clients to either produce buildings, so building buildings on a development site or just a plot of land. It is generally looking at buildings seeing how you can affect the community by those buildings looking at who your clients are, what they want those buildings for are they going to be using them as an investment are they going to be owner occupiers, so looking at the requirements of different people and why they need property or why they want to get rid of property and just basically working with property to deal with a whole host of different issues with regard to law, with regard to valuing a building there is a whole host of different areas you can go into.

What attracted you to this career?

I kind of fell into it from university I didn’t want to do anything to do with my degree so I just decided to look around to see what else was interesting and fell into a post as research analyst for property and I did that for a year and got to know the surveyors really well and started doing their kind of work started really enjoying myself.

I was then able to ask to do a Masters so I had one-day release and did a Masters on real estate management for two years and at the same time doing an APC, Assessment Professional Competence to be more qualified.

What does your job involve?

The job of a surveyor is very varied there are lots of different avenues that you can go into when you first start as a graduate, you choose which departments you want to go into and very often that can depend on the firm you are with, so DTZ is a large firm there are lots of opportunities for avenues to go down, so chose things like management, so we have corporate occupiers, maybe landlords and tenants, we look after the repairs of the buildings do their legal for them so liaising with solicitors, so assignments, sub letting buildings to other occupiers so we help out with that whole process. There is also agency which is disposing and acquiring of properties for clients.

What I do now is valuation is what I have chosen to go into so I am valuing properties on behalf of clients such as banks for loan security purposes. I do a lot of development work, so a developer will come to me and say this is what I plan to do is it profitable so I will work out the valuation with the client and send them a report based on that. For every instruction you get though you have to go out on site to inspect and measure the property if that was necessary or maybe just have a look if it is a piece of land, so you are just looking at the condition of the land, what is surrounding it so you go out on site quite often, for every instruction basically.  You come back into the office you do a lot of speaking to other agents trying to find out rents in other places, what prices things go for so you do a lot of comparable, lots of talking to other people, loads of liaising with other departments in your firm to try and gain information and then a lot of my day is spent writing reports especially because I am in valuation that is what I do, I write reports to clients on how much their property is worth so a lot of the time is spent doing mathematical calculations basically on software or just writing out by hand on the back of fag packets sort of thing to start off with to get some idea, so a lot of time is spent doing actual valuations.

Describe the process of your work?

DTZ is quite big and we have retained clients who come to us and rely on us to do the job so the client will come and say I want you to go and value this, then we will give a quote to the client of how much our fee will be, so terms of engagement they are called, so things we are going to put in our valuation report, it is basically confirming their instruction.  Then you will go out measure and inspect the property you will gather all your comparable evidence all the other information you need such as environmental reports that you might need from your client that kind of thing.  You will do the valuation the actual calculation of the valuation and sometimes that can go back and forth because it has to be peer reviewed so your director or another director will have to come along and have a look at it and you have to explain to them why you propose those figures at that particular time so you sometimes go back and forth with valuations for several weeks before you actually come up the conclusion, the actual answer and then you have to go and write up all your reports so you are basically assuming that all your assumptions you have made within your calculations and you have caveated it so you can't get sued, well that is the hope, so that is the process and then you send your report out to your client and bill them.

Who do you liaise with on a daily basis?

A whole host of people from solicitors, obviously your client, who you are pretty much liasing with constantly other surveyors in the market, other occupiers they don't have to be surveyors, sometimes you are talking to people in shops trying to get some idea when their next rent review is or how much they are paying in rent.  Other people could include banks, I speak to banks quite often, contractors, so if you are working in management, you will be dealing with repairers and that sort of thing, to go and sort out contracts to go and do that for you.

What are the best bits about your job?

I have obviously gone into lots of different departments so there are lots of different aspects of each department that I have really enjoyed I love doing landlord and tenant work which I do part of whilst I am in valuation so that is really getting down and negotiated with the other side and saying "no, it is this amount of rent" whilst they are suggesting it’s another. Finding little loopholes in leases, when I worked in management really going back to the other side and saying "no actually, we are right and you are wrong" and doing the best out of it for my client really and when you have done that and your client is thrilled that you have saved them however many thousands of pounds then it is brilliant, that is what is fantastic about it and I just enjoy doing the mathematical calculations however sad that might sound, yes I love my job.

What are the worst bits about your job?

There can be some really mundane parts of the job sometimes, especially with valuation you have to gather a lot of information and that can be boring, you know phoning up agents and them not being there and trying to get hold of the right person to give you that information searching and trawling websites to find properties that you want, so I think that is probably the most boring part of my job gathering the comparable information to use.

What has been your greatest achievement?

Obviously I am new starting out so the greatest achievement for me was passing my Assessment Professional Competence and becoming qualified, I don't think there is anything I have done so far that has given me that much pleasure and it is such an achievement because it is such a hard process.  When you do it, it is such a relief because without it you can't go anywhere with your career and it is a stigma and especially because the whole market you all do your APC’s at the same time you all sit your exams at the same time so everyone knows at the same time, all the firms know who is sitting, so that was such an achievement to pass first time and to have it all over and no more exams, brilliant.

Any regrets?

I don't know if I would do anything differently, I think when I started off and doing the research first and really beginning to understand surveying, even before I had gone into it, it was a fantastic way and it also gave me something else to add on to my CV and also it was so helpful for obviously surveying to actually be able to find the information you need and analyse the information that you have got, so in terms of doing that and having the Masters by one day release, if you could find a company that can do that for you and will pay for you to do it is a brilliant fast track way rather than paying to do the Masters yourself and having to wait a year until you have finished it.

What are the speicialisms within your industry?

Different areas in property include valuing property, so valuation, portfolio management, property management, real estate management, all different types of management that you can go into.  Agencies, so into office agency where you are purchasing space for office buildings, investment where you are obviously buying them to make money for your clients, do the investment of some kind so you are purchasing the building to let out to occupiers so looking at the financials behind that. Other areas include building surveying, so you become a building surveyor, that is not what I do I am a general practice surveyor.  You can go into more specified areas.  As a building surveyor you would deal with the structure of the building and say party wall disputes dilapidations, so when the tenant comes to the end of their lease, looking at the repairs to the building and negotiating on the costs of repairs that haven’t been carried out or have been carried out and arguing that out.  So other types of surveyor could be a developing surveyor, where you are particularly looking at development sites you could be purchasing development sites for your clients and looking at what can go on there and how much profit they can make from it.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

For graduates it is obviously changing all the time but I think that graduates now it is between 20k and 22k that a graduate should expect but that very much depends on the type of firm you are going in to, how large the firm is, smaller firms you might get 18-19k but for the large firms you should be aiming for 20-22k and when you qualify you should be aiming for 30k and obviously benefits, company cars etc so bonuses are brilliant in surveying firms, obviously depending on what the market is like but there is usually a good pool of bonuses at the end of the financial year.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

You are never on call, that is not something we do, it is working 9 to 5.30 hours and usually 8.30 to 6 will suffice you getting through your working day but obviously sometimes things come up massive projects, and sometimes you just get stuck into something and you want to put everything into it especially if it is a really important client but your working hours are 8.30 until 6 but sometimes you have to do that bit extra it is the same with every career and if you want to do your work then you have to put the effort in, but they don't expect it of you.

Is there much in the way of travel?

Again it depends on what firm you are in, with our firm, now I am qualified, I am going to move to Prague and live there for two years and work there, I could have chosen anywhere but I want to do an Eastern European country so that was my choice, other people in our office, one of the guys is going to China a week’s time just for two months to experience what it would be like to live there, one of the girls has just come back from Spain, in Madrid, she worked in the Madrid office for two weeks and you can do things like that just to get a taste of it, they encourage you to do that to broaden your horizons to look at how other countries work if you can adapt things here to kind of work slightly differently.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

I don't think you have to be based in a big city, I think it is more interesting to work in a bit city, obviously London is a fantastic property industry, but I think I chose Birmingham because it is quite a small market property, it is really about networking more than anything and you have to get your connections and Birmingham is really easy to do that and Bristol as well and it is quite a sociable job to do and there is usually two or three pubs that all surveyors go to so you can literally walk into the pub and you know everyone and it is brilliant because you can get to know the whole market in an informal way so London didn’t appeal to me for that reason, that it is too separate, firms go to their own pubs and it is much harder I think in London, more competitive, but I think it depends on what sort of person you are. You can work in property anywhere in the country it just depends what you are looking for.

What is the working environment like?

It's definitely still a male dominated profession there are lots more girls coming into it now, much more than there ever was before.  You still find that there are certain firms with certain cultures and I would definitely suggest to anyone that is thinking of going into surveying that they did a lot of work experience with different firms because you will find that every firm is completely different in the way they work, in their culture the way they do things.  There is a certain dress code, they say that if you are an agent you wear pinstripe suits, I don’t think that is necessarily true but is does happen. You have to have a certain dress code, you can’t be in jeans, you have to be presentable because you are in front of clients a lot of the time, clients with lots of money and they expect certain things and for you to look a certain way I guess so it definitely helps.

There is a good mix of young and old, I wouldn't say it was tilting one way or the other really you have got graduates up to directors so there is going to be a nice spread of ages, from people who are just staring out but the graduates differ as well you know you have 30+ graduates so there are people coming into it that are having their second career so there is definitely a mix.

How did you get into your job?

I went to Birmingham University I did politics and economics based degree and I had a 2:1 I think it is really important that you get a good degree but it is not necessary that they wouldn’t accept you, I think there was one person on my Masters course, they had to do an extra test of sometime if they had a 2:2 but it didn’t mean they couldn't do it if you had a 2:2 but it just meant you had to do an extra exam to make sure you were at the right level.  So you can obviously do the undergraduate degrees anyway in surveying and it obviously helps but I am not entirely sure what you would need for an undergraduate degree, presumably 2:1.

What's the application process like?

Mine was slightly different because I was doing research it was just a simple interview process, the graduate application for actually doing the graduate surveying coming in straightaway is very strenuous on graduates you obviously have to send your CV and application form if you get through that process then you have an assessment day so that includes doing things like a presentation doing group work where you are assessed the whole time, I think you have to do a mathematical test all the kind of IQ test and then you have an interview I believe with either an associate or director, I think you have two interviews and one is definitely a director and I believe that is all there is to the interview process.

What is cognate versus non-cognate?

Your non-cognate degrees are the degrees that I did, so mine had nothing to do with surveying at all. Your cognate degrees are your real estate management where you have actually chosen that straight off and you have gone straight through.  There are lots more coming through on non-cognate now it is not unusual at all, in fact I think a lot of employers actually prefer it because it means that you have got that extra skill whatever that might be, they quite like it.

What are the key skills required for your job?

The great thing about surveying is there are loads of different area that you can go in to so if you are not an outgoing person, perhaps more valuation based where you are doing more report writing more than actually negotiating and so for an extra bit an agency position would be brilliant where you love socialising you love to go out there get them, do the deals.  So I would not suggest that anyone wouldn't fit in because you can always find somewhere even if it is a smaller firm or a larger firm I think in property there are so many different aspects so many different types of surveying firms that you could there is something for pretty much everyone you have got have a certain amount of intelligence and you have to be fairly confident in your abilities. 

Interviewer: Do you have to be quite numerical because you are working with figures?

If you were to do valuation, as long as you have got maybe B's in GCSE that would be fine it is not rocket science but you know it helps if you can think that way.

I think you have to have really good interpersonal skills not just in regard to the people in the surveying world but also with your clients and also making sure you retain your clients and ensuring you have good relationships with them you also have to obviously like buildings, something that attracted me to surveying was quite simply regeneration, so one minute you can see a site and the next minute it can be a whole community.  It is not just about, oh there is a building, you have to look at the other aspects how that impacts on communities as well so you definitely have to have some passion with regard to that and some understanding of maybe architecture, buildings and what they look like basically.  Some ability, say if you are going to go into landlord and tenants, it is not necessarily about the buildings themselves, it is more about saving money for your client, so if you have that little edge of negotiating then that will be fantastic because that is what it is all about when it comes to landlords and tenant work.  There are other things you can go into I mean we are talking about surveying but there is planning as well so if you are interested in how people decide whether a building should go up there or whether Asda should get their plot down the road, then there is obviously interesting things about the things behind planning, you go and become a planner if that is what interests you so you just have to have some kind of passion for it.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

Straightaway you have to do as much work experience as you can there is such a long process especially with the Assessment of Professional Competence that you have to do at the end, that is two years before you get that, so you are going into property, going into surveying, you have to be dedicated to it, you have to work really hard, it is doing a diary every day, it’s being assessed all the time so you have to make sure before you go into it that that is what you want to do otherwise you are just wasting your time, and also getting the work experience is vital, you know firms won’t take you on, they won't even look at your application unless you have been to one property firm at least and worked there for say a week or two.  Also how do you know what firm you want to go into there are so many different types of firms and unless you do that you can’t possibly understand the cultures or know what you are getting yourself into.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

It is obviously based on your ability but I don’t think there is any set time, and it depends on different firms, every firm has a different structure usually, so it will depend on the kind of firm, if they are an LLP or if they are on the stock exchange like we are then it is different again.  So you are obviously a graduate surveyor right up to the point when you qualify then you have your Member of Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors after your name and then after that, in this firm, you are a senior surveyor, then you are an associate, then associate director and then I believe director. So it is very dependent on what you do and it is different with different departments as well and the property market at that time, you know how well is it doing?  So currently the property market is not as great as it used to be for say investment guys so the investment guys might find it more difficult because a lot of it is based on fees so if you haven’t got the fees coming in you can’t prove how well you are doing, it could be difficult.

How does the role change over time?

This firm is very good because you get to work alongside directors and you are introduced to clients very early on you are very much shadowing the director pretty much you tend to have a mentor or someone who will guide you through the process and when you are a graduate you have supervisors and counsellors who have to make sure you are getting the experience you need so it is an insuring process that you have actually got someone there who will actually teach you what you need to know. For example in valuation, you start off and the director will give you a valuation to do, so you are doing work directly for the director who will just look, they say you are assisting him but you are actually doing a valuation and they are looking over your shoulder the whole step of the time so you are basically given the lead to go out there to do it and they obviously check everything you are doing to make sure that there are no problems in terms of the amount of work it is not that different.

Where do you see the industry going?

Obviously sustainability, mental awareness, major things coming up all the time that you have to be aware of that might be something that is quite interesting because that is going to take off and obviously we have got to try and reduce our CO2 emissions by 2050 by about 60%, but don't quote me on that, so we have got to be aware of that and that might be quite interesting obviously with the current market conditions I wouldn't recommend you go into investment at the moment, obviously when the markets pick up it is brilliant department to be in so there are lots of opportunities.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

It is quite hard to know what kind of industries will take you on.  The qualification you get is with the RCS membership, is a worldwide renowned profession so in a sense you are part of a profession so I guess that helps you with whatever you want to do but if you obviously wanted to go into another profession you have to train for that and there is nothing to stop you doing that so that is quite difficult there are so many different things. 

Interviewer: So with your qualification, where else could you go beyond DTZ?

You can obviously go into councils you can go into regeneration, you can go into all different types of firms, so I am doing commercial at the moment I know people who have done residential before and they have moved over to commercial so there are areas to move within it but because it is such a wide variety of things that you can do with surveying in terms of the different types of jobs within surveying, you can always move around so I have got bosses who were in agency and moved to management then moved to valuation so you don't have to pigeon hole yourself I don't pigeon hole myself in valuation , I just feel I need more experience in that area for maybe another year or two and then wait for the market to pick up and maybe go into investment so there are lots of opportunities to move within it.

I know people who have got their qualifications stopped surveying gone off and set up their own business doing something completely random, something else and then have decided five years later actually I want to go back into it the jobs is there straightaway, you can do that no problems.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

There is Estates Gazette and Property Week they are the two main surveying publications and it is quite good because they give you quite an oversight of different topics that are going on at that time and they also have things like law for students, so surveying law basically for students so that will help if you were going to do a Masters or an undergraduate degree to get into it and it will supplement your learning I guess, so that will be a good idea.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I probably would have gone into social work, that kind of thing, that was something else that interests me, I do a lot of charity work so it is something I like to do out of work, so if I hadn't gone into surveying perhaps I would have gone into that, I think I made the right decision.