Trust us when we say that some days are harder than others.
Recruitment in real estate is hard work. Bottom line and end of sentence. This is probably why we are the only agency servicing the residential real estate market and its staffing needs! Interestingly though, a lot of people aren’t aware of what goes into real estate recruiting.
Our work is not comprised of posting jobs and sifting through resumes. We have to spend a lot of time and effort vetting candidates on multiple levels: screening, interviewing, verifying. Only 5% of applicants are ever a suitable match for our clients. Think about that for a second: 5%. That’s 5 out of every 100 candidates! For a busy realtor to do this work themselves, to staff their office without help is almost guaranteed to result in a few bad hires. They just don’t have the time, nor should they! A top performer has to be engaged in the deals, not bogged down in hiring.
It’s a little like people who insist on selling or buying a home without a realtor. They end up, like the folks on the television commercial, buying a home with a property behind it that hosts a heavy metal concert every other week; something that could have been avoided had they used a realtor. Lest this post become an ad for realtors, we think the point is made.
Of all positions in a real estate office, the Real Estate Assistant (also known as the Client Care Manager) is the hardest to fill. To assist a top performing realtor, a candidate needs to be smart, professional, articulate, poised, accurate and committed, to say nothing of skilled in various technology platforms and so on. Finding candidates who are able to roll with the punches and keep on smiling, who can do the work without the needing to be micromanaged, who take ownership of the tasks and get them done, is NOT easy. This process can take 40-80 hours per role. Any realtor that has attempted to hire for this role on their own can attest to how much work is involved.
The Real Estate Assistant position requires a fair bit of commitment: to stay late when needed and be a support on weekends. It’s not the ideal job for many people, simply because of the time required. It is also the kind of role that means owning the workload to ensure that every detail is taken care of, so that the realtor can get down to the job of selling (or buying) property for their clients.
A realtor doesn’t become a top performer simply based on the number of homes he sells. It has more to do with creating a seamless, exceptional experience for a home seller. Referrals are at the heart of the real estate business, and top performers become such because they—and their team—do an outstanding job, which results in referrals to others buyers and sellers.
That outstanding job means thinking of every detail and making sure that is done to pristine perfection. These realtors have raised the bar on customer service and not every assistant who wants to do this kind of work will make the cut.
It’s up to us at AGENTC to find those diamonds in the rough. It takes a lot of hunting, interviewing, removing from a short list until the perfect match is found but when we find the right candidate for our client, she will be a successful hire that is likely to remain and grow within a team for years to come. This is why realtors breathe a sigh of relief when they find our service. We’ll never get tired of hearing: “where have you been all my life?” from our clients!
