CB Richard Ellis Reviews

Pros

CBRE is a great company to work for and provides many opportunities for the right person looking to receive a great training program in exchange for hard work.

Cons

If you ever leave the company it is very difficult to get re-hired even if you have great experience.

Advice to Senior Management

I would only say please give job candidates a chance to come back to work for CBRE. I have tried several times and interviewed well but still didn't make the cut. I have worked for them twice and made the mistake of leaving the company. Very unforgiving if you leave to pursue other opportunities.

Pros

Very relaxed work environment - business causal dress, flexible work hours
Oppportunites for advancement are readily available
The work is interesting and new work comes through often that helps to keep things fresh
The people are wonderful, everyone is friendly and helpful and willing to lend a hand to others.

Cons

Pay scale seems low and parity among employees at the same level seems lacking.

Advice to Senior Management

I believe Senior management has done an excellent job navigating through the downturn in the economy in the past few years by keeping CB Richard Ellis as the global leader in the commercial real estate services field. However I do believe that with CB Richard Ellis' increasingly positive outlook and performance, more benefits should be passed on the employees, mainly in the form of better pay.

Pros

Big platform. Full benefits, rare in many brokerage shops. Highly visible shop, easy to pitch to clients.

Cons

Assignments are handed down to senior employees 90% of the time, so you have to be associated with right people.

Pros

Largest real estate company in the world.
High brand recognition.
Large network (In theory)
Access to alot of information and data.

Cons

Low sharing of knowledge.
Highly competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember that it's the support staff to the brokers that often does much of the work, if not all.

Pros

internationally known company
has insurance
lots of time off

Cons

pay is bad
no leadership
no accountability
no opportunity for advancement
no training

Advice to Senior Management

get some real leaders onboard

Pros

The following characteristics make CBRE attractive: entrepreneurial business development opportunties, brand recognition, networked organization, continuous improvement, lots of smart people to share ideas with and learn from.

Cons

As a sales oriented organization, development of non-sales people is sometimes less than could be. Personal and career development and expansion of skill sets is not formalized - ie one needs to figure out on their own how to make this happen.

Advice to Senior Management

Institute more formal chanells for, and reward market information sharing. Institute more formal career development processes. Encourage more cross functional job exploration.

Pros

Excellent middle management supervisors. They identify and see the problems the grunts deal with. They went to bat for the grunts but upper management didn't give a rat's....you get the idea. Flexible with time off.

Cons

Pay scale is way below where it should be. Not even close to competitive. Everyone on my team was maxed out as far as work load and they didn't bat an eye at piling on more.

Advice to Senior Management

Give a hoot for how your grunts (those doing the day to day work) are feeling.

Pros

Opportunity to learn from the strongest brokers in the business and move up into money making positions.

Cons

Work long hours a lot of the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Better benefits

Pros

Work in strategic consultancy offers great career potential, fast career latter. Property valuation is relatively simple, however would be payed for very well.

Cons

Weak management in the Moscow office.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure mid management is motivated to provide fair feedback to employees. Strong HR personal in needed.

Pros

Learning new ideas and development.

Cons

Bad middle management that is not threatened by co-workers.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer more training opportunities.