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Reading Room Articles 13 Ways to Find World-Class Property Management Professionals By Patty Morgan-Seager Written for Sales & Marketing Magic Recent economic statistics show the unemployment rate at 4.2 percent! Property management companies across the country are stretching their imagination to find creative ways for locating world-class property management professionals. This article will discuss three ways to improve your recruiting strategies: internal marketing, external recruiting and Internet exposure. Internal Recruitment Your existing team players—Offer recruiting bonuses to your current employees if they find a new candidate for your property management company. Vary the size and amount of bonus depending on the position they help you fill. Offer to reward the referring employee fifty-percent of the bonus on the first day the new employee begins and the remaining fifty-percent of the bonus to be paid after the new team player has worked three months for your company. To encourage your current team to participate in this referral program, develop a system that recognizes each team member's contribution to your recruiting process. Advertise to your residents—Include a well placed ad in your community newsletter that is distributed to your current residents. In addition, display your employment opportunities on your community bulletin boards at the properties you own/manage. If your residents really enjoy living at your wonderful community, imagine what a valuable ambassador they will be for your property management company. Internal job postings—Create an internal job posting information center that contains a current list of each position available within your property management company. This list should include a specific job description for each position and all job postings should be current and up-to-date. Job postings can be sent by E-mail, mailed with each employee's payroll check, or sent with your regular mail/correspondence to your individual communities. Temporary employment agency—Consider the use of an temporary employment agency to fill short-term positions and vacation days, while using their services to find potential new employees. This recruiting system will allow you and your temporary employee to see if working together on a full-time basis will be a good fit. Lastly, in some cities and states there are temporary employment agencies that work specifically with the multi-housing industry. External Recruitment Prospective resident—Recent statistics furnished by CallSource show that over 50 percent of your future residents are living more than 60 miles from your apartment communities. What a valuable resource to recruit new team players! Consider displaying placards in your leasing center and your models advertising the great employment opportunities available with your property management company. Chances are a future resident transferring/moving beyond a 60-mile radius has a significant other, spouse or roommate that would be a great candidate for your property management company. Newspaper advertisement—This form of recruiting is a very traditional means of seeking new team players. The key to producing more effective results with this medium is to make certain you create an ad that is specific for each position and be sure to include the salary range for better and faster candidate selection. Network with industry vendors—Just think...industry vendors spend the majority of their time working with property management companies just like yours and their industry knowledge and expertise can be a great asset to your winning team. A great vendor to tap into would be apartment locators, as these companies give professional welcome packets to all of their apartment shoppers. Based on the strength of your working relationship, request that a flyer representing your property management's employment opportunities be included in their welcome packets. Job fairs—Attend and participate in local and regional job fairs. For example, The Columbus Apartment Association just participated in a job fair at the convention center in Columbus and it proved to be a huge success. At this job fair, they collected over 170 resumes. In addition, executives from property management companies were permitted to interview potential candidates and one property management company successfully filled a position on the spot! Hiring seminar—Consider doing your own hiring seminar to recruit new employees for your property management company. Select a specific date and location, such as one of your community leasing centers or a hotel conference room. Advertise your hiring event in your local newspaper, and experience a very effective hiring strategy that can cut your normal hiring process time of two to four weeks, into two to four hours. For more information regarding hiring seminars contact Derek Lobo & Associates (800-898-0347). Industry magazines—Consider advertising in The Apartment Professionals Resource and Services magazine. They have a new classified section dedicated to assisting property management companies and other industry related companies in their search to recruit new team players. Their magazine currently prints 38,000 magazines and has a readership of well over 150,000 multi-professionals per quarter. Internet Recruitment Company website—Incorporate a "job opportunities" section on your company website and encourage candidates to reply via E-mail. Also, include your company address, telephone number, and fax number to accommodate the applicants that may want to send their resume using more traditional methods. E-mail messages—Incorporate job opportunity information so it appears in the signature file at the bottom of every E-mail that your company sends out. Employment websites—Advertise the positions you have available with employment websites specializing in employment opportunities, such as The Apartment Professional's Resource and Services new employment website, ApartmentjobZ, The Monster Board, Career Path or America's Job Bank, just to name a few. Recruiting on the Internet is fast becoming the preferred way to find world-class team players. If you want to hear more about these important topics or if you would like to receive a list of 37 additional career websites, send an E-mail to MORSEA123@aol.com or fax a note on your letterhead to 614-761-8587. Author's note: Patty Morgan-Seager, president of Patty Morgan-Seager and Associates, Inc., is an national speaker and coach who designs custom training programs for the multi-housing industry as well as other sales and servicing organizations. Patty can be reached at (614) 761-2567 or by E-mail at morsea123@aol.com.