Contributed Article

By Virginia Brookes at Resolver Recruitment

The real estate industry is currently suffering from a lack of good quality and career focused candidates which is causing clients to have to pay top dollar for the right person. 

However, in such a competitive and candidate-short market, now is the time to start building your talent pool and looking for people outside of the industry with a brilliant transferrable skillset.

There are a number of other industries worth considering, including: 

Hospitality 

Candidates from the hospitality industry are used to working in busy bars or hotels. They must work quickly, cope under pressure and are used to dealing with irate and irrational clientele. 

If you’re looking for someone for your property management team, these are all great qualities to possess – you just need to teach them the laws and checklists of property management. 

Also, these candidates are used to working outside of the standard Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm and aren’t adverse to working weekends or taking calls outside of office hours. 

Travel

Candidates working in the travel industry need to possess strong organisational skills with an attention to detail, because they must make bookings and log information accurately. 

They also need great communication and negotiation skills to get clients to commit and to pay – wouldn’t someone like this be great on your sales or property management team? These candidates are also usually very target driven. 

School leavers

Current school leavers are often perceived to lack the work ethic needed to succeed in today’s world. However, taking on and training a school leaver could be very advantageous to your business. 

Candidates that have had experience working somewhere like McDonalds possess a fantastic skill set that could transfer well into real estate. They are expected to turn up for every shift on time and maintain high standards of customer service during busy periods. Their uniforms for work need to be clean and tidy and they are also very driven by processes. 

Make a plan

We know it takes time to train entry level candidates, especially when you’re busy, but it can lead you to find talent that you can work with and nurture in your business. 

In order to succeed when bringing someone on from another industry, you need to ensure the time taken to train someone is not wasted. Make a plan for the first 90 days of their employment outlining expectations, training they will undertake and what you hope they will achieve in that time.

This will ensure the greatest chance of success and you could find that these newcomers become seniors in your business in years to come!