The short answer is: yes.
You’re probably thinking: “Well, of course Ghaz thinks there is value in using a recruiter. He IS a recruiter!” That is a perfectly well reasoned and truthful statement. Here are a few other truthful statements about recruiters, however, and then you decide if it still feels like a one sided answer!
Recruiting is our job
Have you ever heard the expression: “shake your moneymaker”? It’s actually a song title too but basically, it refers to people doing the work that make them the money to keep their businesses growing. For realtors, that’s working with customers and handling transactions for the buying / selling of real estate. For recruiters, it’s finding the right staff to support that effort. Just as it is not advisable for a homeowner to sell his own home, it’s best for realtors to not do their own recruiting.
Here’s why:
Recruiters can often shed light onto details that realtors will miss because it’s not their expertise and they don’t have the perspective of long experience in hiring that a recruiter does. A recruiter will pick up on nuances with candidates: how quickly they respond to requests, if they are on the ball, how flexible/accommodating they are, typos in emails, unprofessionalism during face to face meetings and so on.
Spending hours combing through endless resumes of potential candidates who aren’t remotely qualified for the role is just a waste of time and money, so any thought that using a recruiter isn’t cost effective comes down to the notion that time is money. The time spent sifting through resumes could be used to schedule more listing presentations.
Life has no guarantees; recruiters do!
A recruiter has an extensive network and the essential skills required to find new candidates; they will find people that a realtor with an ad on a social network will NEVER find. Part of the reason for this is that a recruiter will proactively seek out the right candidates, as opposed to passively hoping the right resume will land on their desk. It’s far more legwork but also more fruitful in terms of results.
A good recruiter is not a random people pusher. It is only someone who has a deep understanding of YOUR business and solid confidence in their own recruiting abilities that can offer a 90-day guarantee on each hire.
Recruiting processes are a specialty
Part of the process in recruiting is to put candidates through a fair amount of testing—including behavioural questions—and reviews, to assess their ability to follow instructions and how they respond to independent interviews with different members of the recruiting team. These processes give recruiters a lot of insight into the candidate’s hard and soft skill set.
Interestingly, candidates behave differently with recruiters than they do with potential employers. Some may not see the significance of a recruiter and hence let down their “professional guard”. That means the recruiter can pick up on things that realtors will never see. It allows the recruiter to delve deeply into very specific areas of questioning, something a realtor might not be comfortable with. While a candidate might put on a show for the realtor, their answers to questions posed by a recruiter will likely be less guarded and more honest. This facilitates the ability to ensure a good fit, weeding out individuals who don’t have the required skills quickly and easily.
Having worked as realtors, we understand real estate on a level that most mainstream recruitment agencies can’t. We understand the in’s and out’s of your business, the organizational structure, which personalities fit and which past work experience has transferable skills. It’s not a guessing game. Rather, It is a precise plan curated over years of experience.
Hiring can be an emotional process: kind of like buying a home! We don’t allow our clients to hire out of an emotional need, but instead seek to present the best possible fit. Professional advice from over ten years of recruitment experience is very valuable, don’t you think?
