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
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.