Real estate recruiting is a lot like figuring out which stocks to invest in for the long term. It’s nothing less than an art.
Finding the best real estate agents calls for intense research, candidate sourcing abilities and even leveraging a real estate virtual assistant, as they’re going to add on to a brokerage’s long-term capital.
The best agents help build a healthy sales pipeline, maintain transactions, sustain a brokerage’s brand image, and keep clients satisfied.
As per reports, real estate agents are 17% more confident with their jobs than professionals in other careers. In 2020, the Bureau of Labour Statistics had updated salary figures for real estate brokerages.
Based on their data, the average annual wage for real estate brokers in the US was $81,450 (quite more than an average yearly salary of a real estate broker in 2019). This is notable even amidst an ongoing pandemic when there was a decrease in demand for non-essential businesses by 60.8%!
Real estate agent recruiting should be taken as a step-by-step approach. Finding committed agents, choosing the best real estate recruiting software and developing strategies to retain them requires nothing but time and personal allegiance from a recruitment agency’s end.
Read More: 4 ready-to-send email templates for recruiting top real estate agents
5 things to keep in mind before hiring real estate agents
- Make sure you strategically plan the commission splits and tiers. Gear up to sell your client’s brokerage like a brand and showcase their workplace culture
- Plan out how you’re going to provide the candidates with flexibility and mobility
- List out professional development courses that they’re going to take if they join the brokerage. Ensure you make it certifiable or tie-up with an educational institute to make it worth adding to their resume. Tell them how it shall propel their careers.
- Hop on a call with your client and figure out remote work models for days when fresh recruits don’t have to meet clients or take them through properties
- A study reveals that the first year for real estate agents is generally the hardest. However, this is where you’ve got to figure out plans to retain them for the second year. As per the 2019-2020 real estate income report, you’ll get to know how agents with between one and three years of experience noticed their earnings grow up to $38,141. This number keeps on increasing with time. So, make a suitable data report, combine it with your statistics and deduce the amount of commission your client should pay them if they stick around for more than a year.
10 quick steps to help you in real estate agent recruiting
1. Showcase your workplace culture & company brand
As a recruitment agency, the first step to developing a solid candidate pipeline full of prospective real estate agents for several brokerages would be to amplify your client’s workplace culture and brand.
Now, if you’re a brokerage who’s reading this, you’ve got it right. If you’re still struggling with building a good brand image, now is the time to work extensively on it. Always remember that it’s much easier to recruit the best real estate agents when you’re a market leader and not a challenger. Brand recognition indeed comes with various perks— the first being a solid value proposition.
If a candidate who’s just beginning out to work as a real estate agent recognizes your brand logo and company name, there’s a much higher chance they’re going to work their way in getting a job there. Artificial intelligence in real estate can be powerful tool for brokerages to leverage in their recruitment efforts. By incorporating AI-powered tools and technologies, brokerages can streamline their hiring processes, identify top talent more efficiently, and create a more engaging and personalized candidate experience.
2. Use the right real estate agent recruiting software
Using real estate recruiting software will help you shortlist suitable candidates and save you loads of time.
You would want to choose a recruiting software that lets you have access to tonnes of free email templates, recruiting campaigns, simplifies the onboarding process, and helps in lead capturing.
With real-time data and analytical reports, integrations, built-in Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) etc., a real estate recruiting software can help you simplify the entire recruiting process.
Today, more than 85% of real-estate recruiting agencies use an ATS to hire agents.
3. Take care of candidate experience
When you track your hiring efforts similar to what you’d do for a marketing campaign, the results you receive will help you accelerate your overall recruiting approach and candidate experience.
Providing a positive candidate experience is a crucial point in every real estate executive recruiter’s checklist. 65% of candidates say how a bad interview experience makes them lose interest in their job. Here are some easy ways to take good care of your candidates:
- Provide a smooth onboarding process
- Keep the communication channels open at all times
- Attend to their queries
- Simplify the job application process, and,
- Grow your employer brand
4. Be proactive & send an offer before other brokerages steal your top candidates
5. Have The Right Industry Knowledge
A recruiter needs to have the proper industry knowledge whenever they’re willing to hire a real estate brokerage. This helps in selling out the job to the candidate. Recruiters must act like salespeople, remember?
Real estate recruiting involves informing the recruiter about possible industry trends, what they can expect out of a job, career growth in the years to come, etc. Most of the passive job seekers switch jobs primarily because of more money.
To stop losing out on these candidates, ensure that you’re helping them understand the advantages of sticking to their present position, ways how they can grow their income, and better commissions. It’s not advisable to throw in bleak statistics all the time. Get real!
Real estate recruiters should take their time learning the nooks and cracks of the industry and how it’s going to perform in the upcoming years.
6. Simple Technological Tools For Use
If you tell your shortlisted candidates during the interview that they would need to learn an entirely new technological tool or the fact that the brokerage you’re hiring for still depends upon manual data input, you’ll turn off those candidates then and there.
Make sure the brokerage uses advanced technological tools, that align seamlessly with their unique real estate model and operational requirements, and also automate routine tasks for efficiency.
Simple but reliable tools will help you recruit the best ones as they’d be easy to use and wouldn’t delay their work. Use a good invoice management tool with accurate reports and user-friendly dashboards that would make it adaptable.
With newer agents, you can always handhold and teach them everything, but top real estate agents wouldn’t want to learn using an entirely new and complex software when they’ve been using something much simpler for years. Help automate their task reminders, client meeting scheduling, loan approval dates, and so on.
In simple words, a brokerage must choose its tools wisely.
7. Be Transparent & Provide A Clear Picture Of Their Income
Brokers aren’t the only ones who get worked up at the end of the year for the tax season.
Real estate agents feel the same pressure as they would want detailed information on their salary, commissions, etc., on time. Help them get a clear view of their sales; the commissions generated, their compensation, and net income for an entire year at one place. This will not just save time, but you’ll also build trust.
While interviewing potential candidates, make sure you’re telling them how transparent the brokerage is with their employees and the competitive salary and motivating commission structures that are provided.
Real estate agent recruiting is all about how stimulating and attainable the commission structures are.
For instance, some brokerages tend to offer 100% of the total commission to the team lead, while the rest remain on a plan that splits it with the company.
8. Diversify Your Real Estate Talent Pipeline
A real estate recruitment agency must utilize the full power of social media to reach out to candidates everywhere. Deploy various recruiting ads, video-based marketing strategies, SEO, unique bonus plans for agents, etc., to attract candidates from multiple nationalities, gender, background, etc. An employee referral program could work too.
Ask the brokerage to tell its employees how they’ll reward them with incentives if they can refer diverse real estate agents for hire.
9. Your Onboarding Process Must Be Simple
Own your recruiting process and onboard fresh recruits with ease. The stronger your onboarding process is, the happier your employees. Guess why your candidate onboarding process must be simple?
- Reduces any form of employee anxiety
- Teaches them about their new role in the brokerage
- Reduces employee turnover
- It helps them fit in well with their co-workers
- New hires are much more productive with a smooth onboarding process. In fact, as per reports, companies enjoy 54% greater productivity from new hires. The most extended onboarding programs are the most victorious. Most companies spend less than two months on the onboarding process, and a fraction of these don’t include any new training for the employees.
10. Provide Training, Mentorship & Several Other Career Growth Opportunities
Apart from highlighting and recognizing team efforts and agents who’re doing the best, make sure your brokerage offers mentorship and training sessions to the employees.
If you chalk out a career path or where they can find themselves five years down the lane working for your client’s company, candidates will indeed be attracted. Genuine and authentic support means a lot to everyone. Therefore, consider providing free courses, software, tools, and recommendations that’ll help them learn while making money.
With continuous support, the right software, tools, and a top-notch employer brand, you’ll be able to attract and retain some of the best real estate agents there are out in the market. Let us know in the comments below if you found this guide helpful.
