Tag Archives: hiring advice

How To Avoid Employee Turnover in the Apartment Industry in 5 Easy Steps

Employee retention is without a doubt one of the most intense challenges facing most hiring managers in apartment communities across the board. There is nothing more frustrating than taking the time to find that perfect candidate, train them, then lose them and have to start from scratch.

While it is impossible to wipe completely out this part of doing business, aside from creating leasing consultant robots, there are ways to take preventative measures to ensure your employee turnover is as low as possible.

1. Keep Your Employees Busy

Many managers are satisfied when employees complete their tasks efficiently and on time and do not ask more of their staff when things are running smoothly. While this may seem like a benefit to the employees, this can actually backfire.

People need to feel productive in their work. If the job itself does not occupy all their time on the clock, the downtime can leave employees feeling useless and not challenged.

Make it a point to have side projects going on and involve your staff so they always have something to contribute to. You can reward activities such as working in a resident garden, writing articles for a resident newsletter, and logging time in the property gym. All of these on-the-clock activities can contribute to your staff’s mental and physical well-being. A happy employee does not usually leave their job!

2. Prepare Your Employees for the Rhythms of the Year

Any seasoned apartment industry professional knows that there are certain times of the year that are busier than others. When bringing on a new team member, it is important to prepare them for that upfront.

People can get through most anything if they have a deadline to look forward to. Deadlines will prevent new-hires from getting overwhelmed and feeling like they are not doing a good job, which is a major motivator to quit.

This also applies to your current employees. Make sure they are taken care of during the busiest of times by checking in with them often and offering praise. Let them know that you know this is a stressful time and that they are doing a great job.

On the flip-side, make sure there are things to occupy their time during the slow season, such as the things mentioned above. Don’t let boredom cause your employees sights to start straying to new opportunities.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Fire Employees That Are a Bad Fit

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Many managers put off firing employees that they know are not a good fit for the company. There are many reasons for this, including trying to control turnover.

This can be very harmful to your property’s culture and make good employees decide they don’t want to put up with an incompetent co-worker. By not letting one bad apple go, you risk losing the whole tree. Make sure the environment your staff works in is free of stress from bad hires.

4. Offer Flexibility

Flexibility is high priority with Millennials, which comprise the largest sector of today’s workforce. In some cases, employees would sacrifice a pay raise to have the opportunity to work remotely for a couple days of the week. Think about what jobs can be done from home within your apartment community. Maybe you can offer longer shifts if the employee would like only to work four days a week. You can find many ways to get creative with scheduling and save yourself time and money when it comes to employee happiness and reducing employee turnover.

5. Get Hiring Help

apartment job

In rare circumstances, an apartment community has a dedicated HR manager who’s only job is to hire and maintain an apartment community’s staff.

In most cases, however, the hiring manager is wearing multiple hats and can find it overwhelming to do their core job and while sifting through hundreds of job applicants. By the time they get to interviews, they are desperate to fill the open position and can look over red flags they might not have if they had more time to focus on hiring that perfect employee.

In these cases, it is hugely beneficial to work with a staffing company that specializes in the apartment industry. It’s their business to place their candidates in a position that they are going to thrive. They want your return business after all!

If the new hire does not work out, the staffing company will work to replace them and make it right. The investment can be well worth it to not only find your perfect new team member but have the insurance that you won’t be starting from scratch if they don’t work out.

Reducing employee turnover does not have to be rocket science, it’s an achievable goal that will result in both your’s and your staff’s happiness in the workplace.

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Apartment Communities CAN Hire the Best Job Searchers, and Here’s How!

Attracting top talent to your company is a must for success, no matter what industry you are in. Many times, hiring managers in apartment communities feel the frustration of not having the right pool of talent to hire from. However, there are ways to attract the top talent among job searchers from multiple industries to secure your next ace on your team.

It all starts with the job post. The job posting is the “window” that job searchers are looking at your company through and you want to make sure the view inside is attractive to them. Below are a few ways to accomplish this:

Make the Job Title Appealing to Multiple Job Searchers

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Pigeonholing your job posting can cut out a wide sector of attractive job searchers. A job opening listed as “Leasing Consultant” is likely to get scrolled past by those that are not specifically looking for that position. A better way to search for a candidate would be with the title “Leasing Consultant Who Loves Improving Communities”.

A job searcher that comes from a philanthropic background or who is looking to sign on with a company with a wider mission (link to millennials post) would stop to at least read the job description. You have effectively put yourself in front of a whole new demographic of job searchers.

Make Your Job Description Accurate AND Interesting

Many times a job description can be a mundane task for lower-level positions and hiring managers put something simple out there without much thought. Before seeking candidates, ask yourself these essential questions:

1. What specifically needs to be done?

2. How will success be measured? People want to know they are going to be a top employee if they strive for success.

3. Why would the right person want this job? What does your company offer that others may not?

4. What are the common attributes of your top performers? Define the hard skills, soft skills and personality that your top people share. This may require interviews with current employees.

After doing your research, write a job description that focuses on hard skills, soft skills, what you would be willing to train, what your company will offer in return, and how the employee will be measured for success.

A job description that focuses on these attributes will be welcoming to someone that was not specifically looking for your advertised position, but knows they would be able to succeed if they were to be hired for it.

Treat Candidates Like Potential Residents

When hiring for a new position it is very easy to treat applicants like faceless resumes you have to accept or discard. This can be harmful to your company for multiple reasons.

The top reason being that applicants have friends and family members that might be a better fit for your company culture. If they had a great experience with you, they are likely to tell them about your opportunity if it didn’t work out for them. At the very least you might get a resident referral!

Make sure that everyone who applies is given a genuinely fair shot at being considered, and that he or she receives follow-up and CLOSURE regardless of the outcome. The goal for each phone and in-person interview is to have the person enthusiastically interested in getting your job, even if they are not a good fit.

Finding the right talent for your apartment community can be arduous, but extremely rewarding if the process is approached correctly. Factors such as resident happiness and employee turnover are effected by the hiring of the best job searchers on the market.

For more information on hiring the largest sector of job searchers out there today CLICK HERE. 

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Continually Recruiting: Attracting the Best Healthcare Candidates

 

Continually Recruiting:

How to Attract the Best Healthcare Candidates in Houston

 

The best recruiters know that finding the perfect person for a job starts well in advance of a position opening up. Employers who recruit top talent are constantly recruiting, through marketing themselves and upping their desirability as a place to work.

healthcare recruiting

Even in a job market experiencing as much growth as that of the Houston healthcare industry, if you aren’t continually recruiting you won’t be able to hire the best person for the job. Here’s how to create a recruiting strategy that is constantly drawing from a talented candidate pool:

1. Market Yourself as an Employer

During the hiring process candidates are not only trying to impress you as their employer; but you should seek to impress them as well. Multiple employers seek after the best of the best candidates and you need to have a competitive edge in order to get their attention.

What does this look like? To start with, your website is one of the most effective marketing tools in your arsenal. Make the most of it by having a way for potential employees to submit their resumes online, along with a running list of current job openings. Additionally, your website should make it clear why a talented candidate would want to work there. Job perks, company achievements, and positive reviews can all be subtly marketed to catch the eyes of candidates.

2. Test the Waters

Practice makes perfect – and this is true when it comes to recruiting. How do you know if a job posting will speak to the right type of person for a job? Or if the best candidates are even clicking on your job listings? One way is to test the waters of your pool of applicants. Trying out job postings with different key words or perspectives can help you mine valuable insight into the healthcare job seeker market for when you do need a new employee.

What if you aren’t hiring right now? Even if you don’t need a new employee at this moment, you can still post jobs and follow up with candidates. You never know what will happen: people quit, people get fired, and testing the waters could reel in an applicant that’s a perfect fit.

 3. Keep in Touch with Applicants

Following up with applicants is a good policy to have as a recruiter, and candidates will take notice. Thanking candidates for their application, and letting them know in a timely fashion if you’ve chosen to go with someone else will be appreciated by those applying.

How does this pay off? Healthcare job applicants who you don’t hire may be right for a position in the future or are potential customers – and keeping in touch with them is one way to leave a positive impression.

 

These success of these 3 recruiting strategies lies in their ability to draw candidates 365 days a year. Continuous recruiting attracts the best candidates by getting a leg up on your competition, preparing for unexpected job vacancies, and not losing out on someone who could be perfect for your company.

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7 Most Common Hiring Mistakes

 

staffing company

In a competitive job market, like that of the apartment industry in Houston and Austin, hiring managers often go into the hiring process expecting it to be a breeze—only to run into challenge after challenge. All too frequently they are making some of these common mistakes that, once fixed, could them save bundles of time, money, and energy in the hiring process.

 

1.)            Deciding Too Quickly

Finding the right person for your property is worth taking time for. If you rush the decision making process you are more likely to try and make the wrong candidate fit with an apartment job, exaggerating their qualifications or overlooking their flaws.

 

2.)            Overlooking Past Work Patterns

Has a candidate hopped around to different properties? Has their career path shown upward growth? Past behavior is a good indicator of future performance; and as such you should not overlook work patterns on a candidate’s resume.

 

3.)            Not Hiring with the Property’s Culture

A candidate you choose to hire should not only have the right skills set, but should blend well with your property’s culture. Competition among properties is too steep to choose a candidate who doesn’t gel with your property’s current employees and tenants.

 

4.)            Hiring Yourself

Your property should be composed of an efficient team, which means having employees that balance one another out. If you repeatedly hire candidates who remind you of yourself or have the same qualifications as you then you will not have the diversity needed to grow your property successfully.

 

5.)            Not Looking Beyond the Resume

A candidate may look ideal for an apartment job on paper, but if they don’t have the right personality when you meet in-person then they probably aren’t right for the job. Beyond a convincing resume, the person you choose to hire must also have the right communication and people-skills to excel at your multifamily property.

 

6.)            Talking too Much in the Interview

The point of holding an interview is to see if a candidate is the best fit for a position—not just to tell them about the job. This means that the candidate should talk enough to get to know them beyond simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers.

 

7.)            Not Following through with Training

One of the most serious mistakes a hiring manager can make is to leave a new hire to fend for themselves once on the job without clear communication of expectations or training. Very few people can thrive at a new job with no training, instruction, or support.

 

The cost of making a bad hire is high. Choosing the wrong person now could set you up for starting over looking for a new candidate in a few months when it doesn’t work out with your new hire. Avoid the cost and stress of making these common mistakes in your hiring process and instead start on the path to finding a new team member who will benefit your property.

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My Story: Marni Long – Apartment Leasing Consultant Houston

My Story: Marni Long

            Over a decade ago the people-oriented aspect of the Houston apartment industry drew Marni Long to look for jobs; however, she ended up pursuing a career in office management instead. Today, Marni has returned to her original goal of working in an apartment job, and is employed by Sentinel Real Estate.

In transitioning to the apartment industry, Marni remarks, “I knew that if I wanted to break into a new job channel the best route to take would be through a placement company.” And after a quick Google search, Marni ended up with Hire Priority Apartment Staffing.  Marni knew what she was looking for, and the day she showed up at Hire Priority she was immediately sent to a position they had waiting for her. Of her journey to working for Sentinel Real Estate, Marni says,

“I decided the apartment industry is where I wanted to end up and simply took the steps to accomplish my goal. Hire Priority got my foot in the door and Sentinel gave me the opportunity to prove I could do the job.”

And Marni has found exactly what she was looking for with her current position—a job where she gets to work with people, making them feel comfortable and excited about leasing at her community. Being proactive, asking questions, and networking are all elements of Marni’s journey to which she accredits her success.

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