Attracting the right people to Property Management

Going over an older blog piece from @adamhooley re. hiring of staff. We are currently struggling to get applicants for a Property Manager. Well applicants that are serious candidates. About 5% have some form of experience, usually from overseas or many years ago that it’s redundant now.

I am 100% in the mindset of hiring on character, not experience. I’ve brought on 8 new staff - only one of which had prior experience and the other 7 have been excellent (LPMA award winner) but training from baseline makes it all that bit harder. I’m now faced with a large portfolio that I would love someone experienced for…

We’re based in the Waikato - and I know staffing issues are prevalent throughout every industry but has anyone found any great places to market positions or any great tips/hiring ideas. We haven’t tried a recruitment agency and aren’t too keen too.

Thanks!

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We are in the same mindset about hiring on character. As you know having a supportive team is very important and a property managers mindset can be a make or break.

Lately we have being having a trainee role and have found this helpful. This way if you have a property manager leave you have other team member trained.

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We have had success bringing on staff with no experience. Recently we employed a staff member that had her own investment, but worked running a day car centre. She was put into an office with no other Property Manager - and she has been like a duck to water - she is a superstar.

Experience can also come with bad habits and bad attititude. The above mentioned person replaced a staff member that came on board with experience - and she brought with her the bad habits and attitudy and it did not go well (and during covid :woman_facepalming:)

If you have the right training and support and plug into external training - there is great success in bringing people in from other industries. I think we really need to look outside of experience to bring new blood into the industry and boost the ranks. We have a lot of new technology that is making our jobs better and we should be able to make the job more attractive.

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I’m all for training a newbie to make sure you don’t inherit bad habits, however as you said, sometimes you need a person to just step in and start.

For an experienced property manager, maybe you need to make the job more attractive.

If you are targeting PM’s at other agencies, you need to offer them something that they can’t get or don’t have at present. This might not just be a bigger pay packet, but maybe working from home 1 day, working school hours (9am - 3pm), supported training, career development/pathway, entry to their own portfolio (and income). Anything that you think that you do that might be attractive :slight_smile:

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