Career Profile: Site Selection Consultant

Job Title: Site Selection Consultant

AKA: Real Estate Consultants, Location Consultant, Relocation Consultants
What is a Site Selection Consultant?

A Site Selection Consultant is a consultant that is hired by corporations or business owners to identify the best location for their new facilities.

What does a Site Selection Consultant do?

Site Selection Consultants are hired by corporations or business owners to find locations that will not only have everything they need in terms of basic criteria like size, proximity to transportation and zoning, but also in terms of more complex needs like business tax rates, availability of state-funded subsidies, tax rebates or discounts, cost of electricity, proximity to competitors, vendors or partners, availability of qualified talent, logistics needs, and/or state regulations. These are but a few of the aspects site selection consultants must explore when recommending locations to clients.

The site selection consultant’s job seems as simple as sitting down with the client to compile a checklist of things that must be present in order for him/her to agree to move forward with a recommended location, then searching a database of locations (many states maintain these) to deliver a tidy little list of candidate locations for the client. When working for smaller business clients–a small chain of stores, a restaurant owner looking for his/her next location, a retailer deciding where to open her first brick-and-mortar location–this is the job. The criteria are generally more basic for smaller businesses, i.e. amount of foot and car traffic, visibility from the street, availability of parking, lease terms, type of surrounding businesses and/or proximity to target customers.

However, the job becomes a little more complex when site selection consultants are hired by large corporations, such as Google, to identify and vet locations for large-scale, multi-million dollar (sometimes billion-dollar) projects. The list of criteria not only gets longer, but also require more than a quick pass through a database in order to validate the existence of favorable conditions. In these cases, site selection consultants are often called upon to dig deeper by visiting each of the locations on their list of 3-5 most likely winners (narrowed from the results of their database search and other research) and negotiating with state officials to secure better terms, i.e. no income taxes for the first 3 years, energy credits, prime location or employee training tax credits.

This is the “rare air” part of the job. There are, in fact, only about five consulting firms and a handful of independent consultants that operate at this level. They fly around the world meeting with local officials and members of the state’s or foreign country’s economic development commissions (consultants themselves in many cases) and negotiating big-dollar deals on behalf of “nameless” clients (business names are often kept incognito until/unless the client decides to move forward).

How much does a Site Selection Consultant earn?

Site Selection Consultants earn six-figure salaries, usually upwards of $150,000 per year. They can also earn big bonuses and incentives from both their clients and their firms for finding a location within a given timeframe and/or negotiating a good deal. Additionally, site selection consultants are whisked around the country/world in private planes (or at least in first class) and have their travel and lodging expenses covered by their clients.
For whom might a Site Selection Consultant work?

Site Selection Consultants work either as independent consultants or for consulting firms like Deloitte & Touche Fantus, Ernst & Young, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Many of the larger firms are divisions of tax and accounting firms. Others are divisions of real estate firms.
To break in, you’ll need…

Most site selection consultants come to this career as real estate agents, usually commercial real estate agents. A degree may not be required for these real estate agents turned site selection consultants due to their experience and success in a closely related field. However, most real estate agents must be licensed, and most of the larger firms will require at least a bachelor’s degree.

Others who enter the field come from other areas of business consulting. To break into business consulting, you’ll certainly need a bachelor’s degree, and likely a master’s in order to get to top jobs. Most large firms offer consulting jobs to undergrads from top-tier universities and grad students from top MBA programs.
To find current openings…

Site Selection Jobs

Who might love this job?

Anyone who likes data analysis
Anyone who likes to work with clients to realize business goals
Anyone who like the wheeler-dealer, world traveler aspects of the job
Anyone who likes spending time in off-the-map small towns in middle America or an unindustrialized nation
Anyone who likes real estate, but wants to take their expertise to a higher level

What about this career doesn’t suck?

The Site Selection Consultant career earned a 57% on our WorkYourWay Index. The career earned points for its relatively high salary, nice perks, challenging and interesting work, travel opportunities, and thanks to globalization, and the increased interest in finding eco-friendly facilities and locations, high job growth. The career loses points for the large amount of travel that may lead to less work-life balance, relatively big obstacles to entry, at least at the high end, and the relatively small number of site selection consultants that become brand name go-to’s for large companies.

More info

Site Selector’s Portal - Alliance between site selection consultants and the International Economic Development Council to develop standards for presenting site selection data and creating site selection databases. Great resource!

Site Selection Magazine - Magazine for Site Selection professionals

Development Alliance Directory of Site Selection Providers - Most trust-worthy and complete directory of site selection consultants and other service providers

Development Alliance Directory of Economic Developers - List of economic development consultants that help states/countries market their locations to site selection consultants