Generating and capturing leads can be difficult in any industry and type of business, but perhaps even more so when it comes to talent recruitment. Specifically, real estate recruitment can be quite challenging. The nature of work, particularly for real estate agents, is largely the same so brokerages really need to step up their efforts to stand out.
Indeed, without an effective lead generation and capture strategy, you may not be able to hire the right people to help grow your brokerage. If you’re having trouble with this aspect of recruitment, these tips can help:
Get In Touch With Previous Applicants
Not every candidate you contact will eventually work for your brokerage. Most of the time, you’ll interview a handful of people for a single job. However, this doesn’t mean that you should completely cut contact with the candidates who didn’t make the cut. In fact, previous applicants are some of the best leads you could have for subsequent job openings.
This is because you already know that they have an interest in working for your brokerage, which can be a good indicator of how well a person will fit in your team. Even if these previous applicants aren’t actively looking for jobs, keeping the line of communication alive can help establish rapport for future opportunities.
Use Recruitment Software
To be an effective recruiter, you have to stay organized. This means investing in tools that can help you keep track of everything you need to do: from drip campaign schedules to everyone in your lead/candidate list.
A good move here is to Get Brokerkit. This is a recruiting CRM software that lets you automate email and SMS campaigns, import and segment leads, as well as access important data and metrics. In addition, it also has features that can help with agent retention. In short, it’s a start-to-finish tool. Using a CRM like this can help you become more efficient and stay on top of your tasks.
Write a Blog
Or at the very least, create online recruitment content. Content marketing remains relevant up to this day, especially as the internet has become practically everyone’s main source of information—including job openings and job-hunting tips. This means that providing well-crafted and well-thought-out recruitment content can put your brokerage front and center, attracting more potential recruits.
You can make use of your brokerage’s website to host a blog and upload videos; you can put these on the Careers page or a dedicated extension. Social media is also a great platform for creating recruitment content. Then, you can lead them to your website so they can sign up for a newsletter or a talent network.
Create or Join a Talent Network
Speaking of talent networks, it’s important to always have a pool of potential candidates that you can immediately contact once a position becomes available. This can drastically shorten your time to hire and improve your brokerage’s overall efficiency.
As much as possible, create a talent network yourself so you have full control over how to manage your contacts. If handling a talent network is currently unfeasible, you can join an existing one. However, strive to establish your own pool of passive and potential candidates in the near future. This will help establish your brokerage’s presence in the job hunting and networking communities.
Tailor-Fit Your Messaging
You can’t attract leads if your recruitment messaging doesn’t hit the mark. Simply put, you need to create an appealing message across all your materials: from your drip campaigns to your job postings.
To do this, first, consider the demographics and other relevant details about your target candidates. Are they newly licensed or tenured real estate agents? Are they male or female, single or married? How old are they? All of these factors can help shape the way you communicate with job applicants in a way that engages them.
Get Both Internal and External Referrals
When it comes to efficiency and effectiveness, one of the best ways to capture leads in recruitment is through referrals. If your brokerage already has an established referral program, good! Make sure to review it periodically and provide worthwhile incentives to those who are able to refer agents who stay for a certain period (e.g., 6 months or longer). If you don’t have a referral program yet, then start developing one ASAP.
External referrals are also a good idea. You can do this by simply asking previous applicants in your contact pool to recommend other real estate professionals. This can widen your net and help you find top-notch candidates that you may otherwise not have found through your own efforts. Of course, don’t forget to offer small tokens of appreciation to those who sent you these leads.
Keep in mind that there are no cookie-cutter solutions for generating and capturing leads in recruitment. Different brokerages have different needs, after all. Nevertheless, you can use these basic tips and then fine-tune them in order to meet your real estate company’s staffing requirements.
Good luck!
