I was interviewing for a job at a financial institution right after college.
Everything went well, but I was never called back for a second interview. A friend of mine applied for the same position and had a second round of interviews. He eventually found a job in the training program.
I asked him how he did it.
My brother was friends with one of the hiring managers. I’m lucky.
Luck plays a bigger role in your career journey than most successful people are willing to admit.
I often think about crossroads in my career. All the jobs I didn’t get. Things that break perfectly. Things that don’t go as planned.
What if I had gotten that job in Chicago?
What if I had never sent Josh that email?
What if I was in a different industry? Or did I get into this situation at the wrong time?
What if I had never started my blog?
Of course, you can create your own luck by working hard, but a lot of this can depend on timing and location.
You control what you control, but sometimes things beyond your control take over.
Consider working in the real estate market this decade.
A pandemic has driven mortgage rates through the floor from already low levels. Housing activity has boomed as people re-evaluated their lifestyles during the lockdown.
All the government spending and supply chain shocks caused the highest inflation in four decades. The Fed raised rates to combat this. Mortgage rates went from under 3 percent to as high as 8 percent. They are currently above 6% since fall 2022.
We’ve been seeing a Great Financial Crisis-level increase in home sales for over three years:
We went from a booming home sales market to a recession in the blink of an eye.
Think about people working in the housing market. Loan officers were processing an incredible amount of loans due to all the activity and refinancing going on in the early 2020s.
Homes were selling without any contingencies and without being seen with multiple offers above list price. For many, this was probably the best work environment of their lives.
Not because of anything they did. It was just the environment.
Now we went the other direction.
Wall StreetJournal There was a recent story explaining how the housing recession affected those working in the industry:
Here is the led:
Kim Taylor has invested her career in the housing market.
In mid-2023, the real estate agent launched her own brokerage with her husband, Gordon Taylor. The market in Fort Worth, Texas, had recovered from the pandemic-era frenzy, but business was good. Taylor started out with a team of seven agents and quickly added six more agents to his team.
By 2024, high mortgage rates and prices were suppressing demand and homes were on the market. Many of Taylor’s agents had to find other part-time or full-time jobs to stay afloat. Her husband got a job working for a school district last year.
“We have become a bleeding artery,” said Taylor, who started working in the real estate industry in 2015. “The last 11 months have been the hardest of my career.” He closed the brokerage this spring and joined another firm.
They are not alone.
Real estate agents have to find other jobs to survive:
Nearly 71% of agents surveyed by NAR in 2025 said real estate was their sole profession; this was the lowest rate on record in survey data dating back to 2005.
The average agent doesn’t make very much money:
The typical agent with two years or less of experience closed three transactions and generated $8,100 in gross income from real estate in 2024, according to the NAR survey. The survey noted that a typical agent at any experience level completes 10 transactions and generates $58,100 in gross revenue in 2024.
Employment in space is in free fall:
Employment in the mortgage industry is down nearly 40% from its peak in 2021, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by the Mortgage Bankers Association.
I feel sorry for these people.
They did not personally cause the boom or bust. This is bad luck.
It’s important to remember that sometimes forces beyond your control can determine your work results and career experience.
Further Reading:
Will House Prices Finally Fall in 2026?
