How to Recruit a Property Manager

Great Property Manager’s really do make a real estate business. I’m the first to admit that I owe my former Senior Property Manager Carolyn Altoft so much gratitude for my ultimate success by way of profit and eventual sale price of my agency. Carolyn has since retired but she had experience, skill and a gift to make everyone instantly like her. She is warm, caring and compassionate and worked very hard. Property Manager’s like Carolyn can have a significant bearing on the success and growth of a Property Management department.

It’s important when recruiting staff for our Real Estate businesses that we take the time to consider all the important facets required to fulfil the role. Experience and skill are important however what about temperament, previous job traits, culture, expectations and what support they require.

Have you asked yourself, Why did the last Property Manager leave? And not the reason they said they left or you think they left but why they really decided to move on. Are the systems supporting the staff appropriately? Is there a structure in place to ensure a stress free, productive work place?

Do you consider the Company culture when recruiting. There would be no point hiring a young, vibrant, outgoing Property Manager with a team of mature and conservative introverts. A person who is old schooled and remains in the dark ages isn’t going to fit into a new, modern, tech savy agency. Yet we continue to recruit staff because they have a license and a pulse. We really need to spend more time asking the right questions and identifying the right people to our businesses.

Jo-Anne Oliveri of purple reviloution recently talked about the need to maintain good staff. Jo-Anne said “Principals must focus on retention”. “By having systems, processes, training, resources and of course policies in place you are in a position to proactively manage and monitor your team, and of course your business. It is far less expensive and the result is retention of team, team loyalty and in return this leads to client loyalty”.

Have your senior staff spend time with them during the interview process and provide feedback on their thoughts of suitability. After all, they’re the ones who will be working with them.

Personally, I never did hire without 3 interviews. On the first interview, once the potential staff member arrived I always provided a questionnaire for completion. This allowed me to look at spelling capabilities, ability to construct sentences and it gave me a good starting basis for the interview.

I would look at how they positioned themselves in reception to see if they watched the staff and showed interest in the business or would they turn their back and just look out the front window, maybe wishing and dreaming they were still at the beach. I always figured if that was there preference then who was I to get in their way by giving them something else to do during the day.

Real Estate business highly under estimate the real cost of recruitment. Jo-Anne Oliveri noted these real time costs of recruiting the wrong staff

• Recruitment agency costs
• Damage to brand and reputation,
• Pressure on productivity and efficiency,
• Lack of continuity in management,
• Costs for new business cards and email set-up

Recruitment remains the single most important function within a business and no more so than a Real Estate Agency.

If you would like to talk more about recruitment within your agency contact Kevin Hockey on 0413 879 986 or email kevin@reas.com.au