This is One Cool Career!

Yesterday you shivered in the clammy confines of a cold war bunker buried two storeys below ground:  today you savour the early morning mist as it rises through the forest, spun into gold by a waking sun:  tomorrow you will crunch the cash flow of the Region's largest shopping centre.  If you are a recent Commerce graduate interested in a professional career that also offers challenge, variety, excitement and the opportunity to put your skills to work … this is it!

Your Commerce degree (finance, accounting, economics, or marketing major) can unlock the door to a career as a Chartered Valuation Surveyor.  Humdrum it is not … you may find yourself providing advice to potato farmers expropriated for the Trans Canada Highway on Monday; assessing a fire damaged warehouse on Tuesday; valuing a million dollar waterfront lot for capital gains tax on Wednesday; appearing in Court as an expert witness on Thursday; and advising a client what they should pay for an office building on Friday.  This is a career most have never heard of … but once discovered find exciting, challenging, satisfying, fulfilling, remunerative, not gender dependent, where you will be limited only by your own ambition.  This is not an appraisal position, though you will also graduate as an accredited appraiser.  It requires a much broader skill set (critical thinking, financial analysis, negotiation, court work, etc.) and further company funded study for the University of British Columbia's real estate degree by distance learning.  From our offices in Halifax your work will take you throughout Atlantic Canada and offer a good balance between office and field work.  The work environment is friendly, supportive and (usually) good fun.  Our computer resources are state of the art.  Check our web site www.turnerdrake.com for a more detailed look at us.

Skills and Qualifications

You will have a recent undergraduate degree in commerce (finance, accounting, economics or marketing), with above average grades.  You will be well grounded:  this is not just a number crunching job, it is important that you can see the forest as well as being able to count the trees.  You will be interested in a career rather than just a job, something which will get you up in the morning with a spring in your step.  You will want to work with colleagues who share your enthusiasm.  You will enjoy variety and merit the respect of your peers.  You will value working in a team environment, have an eye for detail, be thorough, trustworthy, reliable and will benefit from the opinions of your colleagues.  You will have an enquiring mind and a sense of humour.

Training

We have a choreographed training program which blends company funded study from the University of British Columbia's real estate degree, our own in house training modules, and on the job training under the guidance of a mentor.  We will give you responsibility to take jobs from start to finish within the first two months of you joining us and will carefully increase that responsibility as you gain knowledge and experience.  We will cycle you through our Lasercad™ Space Measurement, Valuation, Property Tax and Counselling Divisions so that you can benefit from a broad exposure to real estate counselling.

The Sexy Stuff:

We asked the younger members of our professional staff what they enjoyed most about their careers with us.  This is what they said:

"One of the benefits that I saw in working here when I was first starting out was the opportunity to be mentored by some of the most highly-educated and well-respected individuals in the industry (all of whom ultimately proved most generous in sharing their time and expertise).

I also saw real estate consultancy to be a unique application of the skills I'd acquired at Dal – it combined them in a way that other disciplines I'd considered (i.e. chartered accountancy and law) did not."

"The ability to work independently and take a project from start to finish.  I really enjoy the fact that I may be analysing the cash flows from an office building one day and inspecting a shipyard next."

"I think a main benefit of working here is that you are able to learn a new field through on the job experience and the knowledge of senior staff and through education, the UBC courses.  It is an opportunity to continue your education with a company that is willing to invest in you while gaining experience in a competitive field."

• " Working out of the office.  Being able to get out of the office and work on site jobs is a bonus.
•  Continuous education.
•  The mentor program, having someone that can answer all of those little questions that usually cause discomfort to a new employee is a big relief.
• Own office space.  Not being in a bull pin set-up is great, because you have privacy.
• Social events with the company.
• In depth work experience, opposed to just being basically an assistant for someone else.  You are doing real work with real deadlines."
• " Good mixture of in-office and field-work.
• Opportunity to see the inside workings of factories and facilities that no one else gets to see.
• Opportunity for traveling through Atlantic Canada.
• Company funded courses.
• Quick and steady salary jumps (they worked out to be about $5,000/year in each of the first 5 years).
• Wide variety of property types (hangars/dairies/pulp and paper mills/pawn shops/residential/container terminals/etc.)
• Wide variety of skill sets (financial analysis, critical thinking, negotiation, court work, etc.)
• Working in a medium sized firm (you're not just another person in the firm that most people don't know).
• TDP has a strong reputation."

Compensation

This is a salaried position with a benefits and pension package.

Application:

Submit your CV (together with a copy of your University Transcript) to:

M.S. Turner, M.Sc., MBA, FRICS, MAI, CRE, AACI
Turner Drake & Partners Ltd.
Real Estate Counsellors
6182 North Street
Halifax NS  B3K 1P5
email:  mturner@turnerdrake.com