DuWarren Gibson is helping to support Chicago CRE’s pipeline of young talent from the other side of the table.
Courtesy of The Eisenberg Foundation
DuWarren Gibson
Last month, the associate at Related Midwest returned as a judge to the competition that helped him get his start in the industry in 2019. The Eisenberg Real Estate Challenge, which took place in April, tasks teams of undergraduate and graduate students with creating project proposals for real-world development sites. It also serves as a potential on-ramp to future employment in the industry.
“I do like to offer my time and take phone calls and try to be an asset and mentor to them as well because they’re coming up,” Gibson said. “I was that student before.”
Gibson, who graduated from the University of Illinois in 2019, credited the competition and related opportunities to shadow industry professionals with setting him up for success within the field. He parlayed his experience at the competition into other roles in the industry, which eventually led him to a job with one of the most prominent developers in Chicago.
For young people looking to break into the industry today, The Eisenberg Foundation is an example of how an in-person network of connections can be a key tool in landing a role in CRE as artificial intelligence crunches the job market for fresh graduates.
The overall unemployment rate for recent grads ages 22 to 27 was 5.6% at the end of March, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s above the unemployment rate for all college graduates and all workers, at 3.1% and 4.2%, respectively.
Job postings for CRE positions requiring zero to two years of experience fell 17% in 2023 and dipped another 9% in 2024, according to CRE job platform SelectLeaders. Total listings for those roles were 19% below their 2021 peak by the middle of last year.
Companies are increasingly leaning on relationship-based hiring models for younger employees, multiple industry professionals told Bisnow last year.
“I can go to any of these events and network and meet my next boss,” Gibson said. “Someone might have impressed me, and I might recommend them for an internship at Related.”
Courtesy of The Eisenberg Foundation
Two students present as part of The Eisenberg Real Estate Challenge.
The challenge, now in its 16th year, has grown exponentially since Gibson competed in 2019 — roughly 12 undergraduate and graduate teams duked it out then compared to 27 this April. More than 1,000 students have participated since its inception.
This year’s annual case competition had teams designing projects on an 8.1-acre parcel within The 78 megadevelopment, which Related owns, and adjacent to the $750M Chicago Fire stadium under construction. Gibson said students receive the site’s parameters several weeks before the competition, then go on an in-person visit and talk to the property owner as they put together a proposal for what they would develop on the site.
Then, it’s a sprint to put together the final project, complete with a proposal for how students would finance their project, an executive summary and multiple all-nighters to prepare.
“The presentation is only 30 minutes of your life,” Gibson said. “But you think this is the most important thing you’ve ever done.”
As a student, his team studied a variety of academic disciplines, from finance to architecture. He said working with people with diverse expertise helped prepare him for his role at the vertically integrated Related.
As a judge for this year’s iteration, Gibson said his industry experience allowed him to poke holes in some of the proposed project’s economics while also pushing students to take bigger creative swings and not be overly constrained by realism. Networking with the students led to many LinkedIn requests, too.
“It’s definitely a full-circle moment,” Gibson said.
