Real estate agencies often struggle to recruit top talent for their organizations, but skill separates the top agents and the best firms from the rest. The best way for a broker to recruit real estate agents is to understand the obstacles in the form of a new agent and the process of hiring new agents.
These obstacles to recruiting good real estate agents include not leveraging the right technology or CRM. It can also include not using online resources like Facebook and LinkedIn.
Identifying and addressing the top challenges for real estate recruitment in your agency or real estate brokerage is the first step in beating the competition.
Once you know which challenges stand in your way for recruiting top-producing real estate agents, you can begin implementing best practices for finding the best agents.
This includes everything from communicating your value proposition and company culture to leveraging current agents to tap into their network.
One of the best ways to recruit real estate agents is to establish strong brand recognition and an engaging online presence to connect with real estate industry professionals. Each new employee you bring onto the team joins a group of top real estate agents.
Showcase what makes your brokerage great and start honing your recruiting strategy and tactics to recruit real estate agents.
Common Challenges for Real Estate Recruitment and Recruiting Real Estate Agents
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Most agencies address this by choosing better marketing channels or recruitment platforms. These platforms are great if you’re trying to solve the problem of how to recruit more real estate agents.
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Timing and replacement. Agencies function most efficiently when they always have an entire team of available agents. But what happens when an agent quits?
Most agencies scramble to find a replacement as quickly as possible, which is not ideal for real estate recruitment. You want to avoid relying on a recruitment agency for real estate talent, so you’ll need to hone your tactics in recruiting real estate agents. Even with ample time, timing new hires for recruitment real estate can be challenging.
You can list the top 10 ways to recruit real estate agents, but it will only be so effective if you do not have time to execute it.
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Differentiation. There are thousands of real estate recruitment agencies and brokers out there, and many will be in direct competition with you to find and recruit the best talent in the industry.
If you don’t have a way to stand out from the crowd as part of your marketing plan for recruiting real estate agents, candidates won’t have a reason to choose you over your competitors. In thinking about recruiting the best real estate agents, think about what makes your brokerage the best and incorporate that into your best practices for recruiting real estate agents.
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Hours you are spent. You might have a solid process for recruiting new real estate agents, but how long does it take for you to go through the motions? If you spend too many hours on real estate recruiting, the result won’t be cost-efficient. The recruitment agency’s real estate agent approach will always prioritize efficiency.
Incentivize referrals
Across many industries, employee referrals remain the most popular source for hiring. The real estate recruitment agency hiring is no exception—and for good reason. Roughly 72 percent of interviews and 65 percent of external hires come from referrals by professional agents or employees.
Referrals are easy to get, requiring no investment in advertising, and tend to produce higher-quality candidates, making them one of the best ways to recruit real estate agents. Since your top agents and employees will serve as the first-layer screens for your real estate firm or branch office, you can be confident in recruiting good agents.
By leveraging your existing pool of agents, you can solve the problem of recruiting more real estate agents.
Focus on your company culture
It’s tough to differentiate your agency from others as part of your tactics for recruiting real estate agents because the nature of the work is often the same, and your pay is likely competitive. You can’t offer much more money without jeopardizing your profitability, and you may not have wiggle room to change agent responsibilities.
However, you can distinguish yourself from qualified candidates in your marketing plan to recruit real estate agents by focusing on your workplace culture. When considering recruiting and retaining real estate agents, consider what makes your brokerage unique and how to share that information. Your social media accounts are a great place to post content from events with your team members to show what your culture is like to prospects.
This can serve as unofficial real estate broker recruiting ads. What is it that makes your brokerage or agency different from those of your competitors? What kind of atmosphere can agents expect? Highlighting this information is one of the best practices for recruiting real estate agents.
Please think of the top 10 ways to recruit real estate agents and put them to work in recruitment, sales, and marketing.
Break the formula for recruiting real estate agents
Try experimenting with approaches that break the mold of common knowledge and traditional recruitment strategies when considering how to market and recruit top-producing real estate agents. If you rely on a basic script or create a template for your job description, you will look like every other agency out there and get lumped in with various recruitment agencies for real estate recruiters.
You aren’t going to attract the attention of top talent and new real estate agents. Tinker with the headlines of your job ads, placement strategy, and other variables to see if you can get better results and discover the best ways to recruit top real estate agents.
Choose your marketing channels and resources wisely
You could use many marketing and advertising channels for your top real estate agent recruitment, including inbound and outbound options. Consider these options carefully; you may be tempted to blast your job openings on as many channels as possible. This is likely not how to recruit top-producing real estate agents. It’s usually better to focus on quality rather than quantity.
Evaluate your email marketing and advertising sources based on cost, effectiveness, and appeal to your target demographics and favor channels with the best comprehensive benefits. What’s the best advertising to recruit real estate agents?
Keep tabs on employee satisfaction
Your real estate agent recruitment strategy won’t mean much if you have a high turnover rate. Even the best recruitment agencies’ real estate specialists can only help so much. The best real estate recruitment strategies and agencies also emphasize building relationships with your current agents and their long-term employee satisfaction.
How easily can your existing agents integrate into your workplace culture? How happy are they with their position? How can you improve workplace conditions in the future? It’s almost always cheaper to keep a talented agent than to try and find a new one, so it should be your top priority.
Get Brokerkit
Everything gets easier when you have the right tech tools or CRM to improve your productivity (and results). One of the best tools available for real estate recruitment is Brokerkit, an intuitive recruiting platform designed for real estate brokers and teams to help you efficiently hire the right people. Brokerkit does the work of a real estate recruitment agency with the ease of a seamless software tool.
With it, you can keep track of every lead, manage your follow-ups, coordinate with your team member and fellow recruiters, and onboard your new agents in a streamlined, easy-to-learn process. Brokerkit has been used to recruit more than 200 new agents in a year and is constantly adding more new agents and clients. For a free Brokerkit demo, sign-up here.
Bonus tip – Recruit agents with different experience levels
Casting the net wide is a good strategy for recruiting real estate agents and real estate recruitment agencies. Like every other real estate business in town, you want to go after heavy hitters. It will also take longer to convince a top producer to switch firms.
Targeting new agents for your real estate team and those who are consistent performers, even though they may not be in the tip-top tier, is one of the best ways to recruit real estate agents. It’s essential to recognize agents who just got their licenses vs. ones that have been selling homes for 30 years and will probably care about different things when considering where to work. You must vary your approach depending on an agent’s experience level to get the best candidates.
Experienced agents may focus more on the technology and marketing tools your real estate company can offer them. New millennial agents may care more about a place they can grow, whether you have fun company outings and your lead generation capabilities to get them started. Wondering what’s the best advertising to recruit real estate agents? It depends on who you’re looking to hire.
Bonus tip – Invest in a mentor/buddy program
The real estate industry is a tricky business. Assigning new agents a mentor will go a long way in keeping them at your firm and is a a great way to answer the question of recruiting the best real estate agents. Experienced agents do not need the same kind of help, but assigning them a buddy is beneficial.
Everyone appreciates a friendly face at team meetings and someone they can call with questions. It’s the type of program that can differentiate your firm from the offers of a recruitment agency for real estate.
Bonus tip – Measure your real estate recruitment results
Any competent agent measures their results. Whether it’s marketing campaigns to prospective sellers or following up with potential buyers. Recruiting real estate agents is no different than other agents. You need to identify whether or not what you are doing is working in your recruitment process and marketing plan for recruiting real estate agents.
You may have a list of the top 10 ways to recruit real estate agents, but you need to shift gears if it’s not yielding results. An example of a key metric is to get a goal and track how many phone calls you make daily.
Bonus tip – Make it about more than money
Compensation will come up, but it is only one factor of the equation for agents trying to steer the direction of their real estate careers.
Many people need to work somewhere with values similar to theirs. A cultural fit is also critical for both parties’ success, especially if you are a new brokerage. Leading your real estate recruitment efforts with a conversation on commission splits is likely a losing strategy.
The real estate industry is a tough business. Assigning new agents a mentor will go a long way in keeping them at your firm and is great way to answer the question of how to recruit the best real estate agents. Experienced agents do not need the same kind of help but it’s beneficial to assign them a buddy. Everyone appreciates a friendly face at team meetings and someone they can call with questions. It’s the type of program that can differentiate your firm from the offers of a recruitment agency for real estate.
Bonus tip – Measure your real estate recruitment results
Any smart agent measures her results. Whether it’s marketing campaigns to prospective sellers or following up with potential buyers. Recruiting real estate agents is no different. You need to be able to identify whether or not what you are doing is working in your recruitment process and marketing plan for recruit real estate agents. You may have a top 10 ways to recruit real estate agents list, but if it’s not yielding results you need to shift gears. An example of a key metric is to get a goal and track how many phone calls you are making per day.
Bonus tip – Make it about more than money
Compensation will come up, but it is only one factor of the equation for agents trying to steer the direction of their real estate careers. It’s important for many people to work somewhere that has values similar to their own. A cultural fit is also critical for both parties and especially if you are a new brokerage. Leading your real estate recruitment efforts with a conversation on commission splits is more than likely a losing strategy.
Bonus tip – Try a happy hour
Getting lost in the daily business of winning clients and closing transactions is easy. You need to be deliberate about your real estate agent recruitment and take it just as seriously to get the best candidates. Keeping agents and candidates engaged is how to recruit and retain real estate agents. What’s the best advertising to attract and recruit real estate agents?
Letting customers and prospects see you and your team in action, working hard, engaging with the community, and having fun. Hosting a quarterly or monthly recruiting happy hour keeps it on everyone’s radar as an important activity. It also allows socializing with prospective customers and recruits outside the office.
Final Thoughts for Recruiting Top Prospects
If you’re ready to recruit agents in your area, you’ll need the best tools to help you get the job done. Remember, you’re competing against other brokerages, real estate recruitment services, and agency recruiters.
The best way for a broker to recruit real estate agents is to have a comprehensive sales strategy. Brokerkit’s real estate recruiting module is the top platform on the market. Sign up for a free demo to learn how Brokerkit can help jump-start your recruiting success efforts today!