One of the best things that a real estate brokerage can do to grow and succeed in the industry is to make talent acquisition a top priority. Doing so can increase your company’s productivity, not to mention save on costs.
Of course, hiring well isn’t as easy as it seems on paper. You need to have a proper strategy in place so you can find the best real estate agents in the resource-efficient way possible. If you’re running out of good tactics, you can read this real estate agent recruiting ideas post to help you out.
Meanwhile, if you already have a recruitment plan in place but can’t seem to attract top talent, there might be something missing. Here are some key things that you may need to add or at least refine in your current real estate recruitment strategy:
A Workforce Plan
When you hire real estate agents, you don’t just think about whom to recruit and how to recruit them. You should also consider how many are needed so that your brokerage can function optimally. This is what’s called a workforce plan.
A good way to develop a workforce plan is to go by location. How many do you need per city? How about per state? If you’re a smaller brokerage that’s focused on only a couple of places, you can instead use go by department or category (e.g., commercial vs. residential). It’s also important to go over your workforce plan at least every year, especially if you’re looking to expand your operations.
Creating a workforce plan helps you make smarter hiring decisions and allocate your resources more effectively.
Separate Roles for Sources and Recruiters
Many brokerages combine the roles of sources and recruiters, but these two are actually quite different. Sourcing involves the process of looking for candidates and getting in touch with them for potential recruitment. Meanwhile, recruiting is where the screening and actual hiring processes happen.
For bigger organizations, it’s best to separate your sourcers from your recruiters. A big part of real estate agent recruitment success relies on sourcers being able to find top-quality candidates that recruiters won’t hesitate to hire. If there’s trouble during the sourcing, there’s likely going to be trouble with the recruitment.
If you don’t have enough manpower to create two separate teams, you need to do two things. First, clearly identify the steps involved in sourcing. Second, set a strict schedule so that sourcing doesn’t take up all your time and effort. Doing this can help streamline both processes and ensure that you don’t leave one aspect behind while prioritizing the other.
An Internal Hiring Strategy
The words “hire” or “recruitment” are usually associated with looking for external candidates. However, it’s also important to look within your brokerage; you might be surprised that the employees you’re looking for are already part of your team.
Obviously, internal hiring won’t always apply to every recruitment scenario. It works best if you’re looking to expand, where you need a more senior person overlooking a team. It’s also a great way to give a well-performing agent a much-deserved promotion (and also prepare for succession planning).
An Established Employer Brand
It can be difficult to hire good real estate agents if you’re only marketing the job and not the brokerage. Indeed, even with a compensation package that favors the agent, you might find fewer people willing to submit their applications if they don’t know anything about your brokerage.
In short, you also need to develop your employer brand and culture at the same time as your recruitment strategy. Remember that any person, regardless of their work experience, age, or gender, would be more willing to join a company that shares their values. Make an effort to establish a connection. Highlight the things that make your brokerage the brokerage to join.
Most importantly, don’t just build your brand and culture. Live up to them! Nothing can tank your reputation more than over-promising and not being able to deliver.
A Focus on the Candidate
Last but certainly not least, an effective recruitment strategy focuses on the candidate. You need to remember that employment is a give-and-take setup—your employees lend you their skills and expertise, while you compensate them properly and give them a working environment that’s healthy, safe, and conducive to productivity.
Another important component of the candidate experience is communication. Keep them updated regarding the progress of their application and let them know ASAP about the results (whether or not they’re positive). Don’t leave a candidate hanging or it might sour their perception of your brokerage.
What’s even better about focusing on the candidate in your recruitment strategy is that it also allows you to start the retention process early. This will help immensely with regard to loyalty, which in turn boosts morale and improves long-term productivity.
As you can see, these are pretty simple elements but some brokerages tend to forget about some or all of them. Add or fine-tune these in your real estate recruitment strategy to help your brokerage thrive!
We hope you found this blog post on 5 Things Your Real Estate Recruitment Strategy Are Probably Lacking useful. Be sure to check out our post on How Can You Earn More as a Real Estate Agent? for more great tips!
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