Recruitment Strategy for Engel & Volkers Real Estate Brokerage

Introduction 

Engel & Volkers Realtors is Real Estate Brokerage Company that is soon opening with a focus on selling residential houses in the target market of Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Engel & Volkers Realtors focused on representing up to 1000 realtors existing in the region of Simcoe County. The company is providing qualified candidates the leadership, opportunity, professional development alongside other tools and services to deliver a high standards of services to the clients. Engel & Volkers Realtors is focused on community and has a belief that prosperity of a community is founded largely on homeownership and shelter. The company emphasizes affordable housing and assist the first time purchasers understand how to get on the housing hierarchy. As part of this, Engel & Volkers Realtors is finding suitable and qualified persons in the housing sector to find solutions and develop resources to make housing accessible to every person. 

Top Target Markets to Recruit 

Engel & Volkers Realtors is targeting a top market to recruit in the buying and leasing of homes or apartments. Qualified candidates should have a network of resources accessible such as contractors, home inspectors, financial sources and cleaners among others. He or she should work within the framework of insurance and coverage of liability. Besides, he or she should protect the interest of the company and be on the lookout for details. Also, he or she will work with the company as an active partner in the process and work together in every step of the way. 

Buying a home is mostly the biggest purchase one can make. Therefore, Engel & Volkers Realtors is looking for an invaluable candidate to assist in locating the property that is right for the client. The candidate must have a great deal of knowledge of financing to help the buyer in evaluating mortgage alternatives as well as procuring attractive financing (Barrie & District Association of Realtors, 2017) . Moreover, the candidate should be a skilled and an experienced negotiator. He should be knowledgeable about the developments and trends of real estate by providing facts, neighborhood trends, comparable prices and conditions of the housing market. 

The target market to recruit from should be able to provide different services such as assisting in setting price listings within the current market frameworks. He or she should provide market recommendations as well as advice to make the clients' home more attractive and saleable. Nonetheless, he will act on behalf of the client during negotiations ( Craig, 2015 ) . He should know how to sell client’s home in the minimum amount of time for the best conceivable price. 

Qualified candidates must possess the ability to assist clients in the development of the market plan to sell their home. Lastly, he or she should provide the necessary market exposure the client’s home will need through the several listing services by communicating the client’s listing to potential purchasers throughout the country. 

Recruitment Plan 

Engel and Volkers Realtors have approved this recruitment plan. The plan carefully outlines the approach for attracting as well as hiring the most potential applicants and assist in ensuring a pool of applicants includes under-represented groups, for instance, people with disabilities; and women ( Craig, 2015 ). The company embraces diversity and inclusion which fosters an inclusive organizational climate where individual exclusivity is welcomed as well as valued. In addition, the affirmative action is ensured through constant quantitative and qualitative assessment of equal employment efforts. Further, irrespective of individual characteristics, the organization aims at ensuring equal employment opportunities. The recruitment plan contains channels of advertising to be used in achieving the organization’s goals. The recruitment plan is elaborated in five major elements including: 

• Period of Posting 
• Goals of Placement 
• Extra Advertising Resources 
• Diversity Bodies/Agencies 
• Resume Banks 

A. Posting Period 

Engel & Volkers requires one accounting manager, Rockstar’s or Real estate agents in 10 different regions, one full time or one part-time receptionist. The deadline for application is on 15 th March 2018. Also, the organization needs to fill in Professional Support Staff (PSS) or Broker of Record and Marketing/Social Media Manager. He or she must be registered and licensed through RECO. Those who qualify for support staff should submit their applications by 20 th March 2018. The positions remain open until filled and the posting will be open as well as viewable on the career site. Recruitment will be on-going until the deadline for application. 

B. Placement Goals 

The mission of Engel & Volkers Realtors is to offer equal employment opportunities founded on non-discrimination, affirmative action, advocacy for rights of all persons to equal chance in all matters of employment disregarding race, religion, color, sexual orientation, sex, age, nationality, veteran status and disability as protected by the law. 

Engel & Volkers Realtors works in collaboration with the local university community to guarantee employment policies, practices, procedures alongside initiatives meet the message and the spirit of affirmative action and equal employment while supporting the community’s assurance to diversity. 

C. Additional Advertising Resources 

Advertising resources will include both print and electronic media externally to attract applicants who manifest the diversity of Engel & Volkers Realtors values in its personnel. The company will emphasize a thorough search before filling various positions. 

Any advertising linked to recruitment should incorporate “ Engel & Volkers Realtors is an equal opportunity as well as affirmative action employer with a strong institutional commitment to achieving excellence and diversity among its staff and faculty .” The print advertisement will include national publications; local media not often used but may be effective for positions of social media manager and part-time receptionist, and alternative paper adverts. Renowned websites can offer help with most marketing media by coordinating the advert placement. Further, it will include associations which are of help in targeting applicants with particular niche skillsets. 

Social media advertising involves Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as a source of recruitment. A Job fair is another popular approach for meeting applicants face-to-face as they promote the organization’s brand and image (Regents of the University of California, 2015) . Job fair focus on diverse applicants specific to a given sector, thus, the best approaches to meeting potential applicants in any one event. 

Besides, campus recruitment and professional conference events are a great method to market Engel & Volkers Realtors and offers a chance to network with prospective qualified applicants for social media marketing and receptionist. Therefore, campus career centers and conferences have the ability to support recruitment needs by offering services of job posting as well as facilities for interviewing. When using the events for recruitment, the universal hiring process must be adhered to and comprise: 

Posting of the job to confirm the position to be filled is posted on the campus website, and all candidates are directed to make an online application. 

Carry out interview processes 

All eligible candidates chosen for interviews to receive a short-list confirmation before they are interviewed 

On-site screening interview 

The screening interview should be carried out to collect preliminary data on future candidates. 

The screening interview should be carried out by more than one member of a committee 

On-site selection interview 

The interview is intended to make the final decisions on hiring 

The interview requires all members of the committee to be in attendance. 

So as to guarantee equity and fairness in the process of hiring for interviewees who did not attend physically, the guidelines highlighted in Conducting Virtual Interviews must be observed. 

D. Diversity Bodies/Agencies 

Various agencies help under-represented groups and women with a great source of talents. Engel & Volkers Realtors have developed relationships with the human resources of these agencies to identify potential candidates who have a better understanding of the company's staffing needs, mission, and values. 

E. Resume Banks 

Engel & Volkers Realtors’ HR will also identify qualified candidates from resume banks where job seekers post their resume for their prospective employers. 

Measures of the plan’s success 

Engel & Volkers Realtors measures of recruitment plan's success are based on time or cost per recruit to fill a position. If the company fills, say five jobs per month and makes $70,000 per year, the standard cost to fill is $6,000 per monthly salary which translates to about $2,250 for every position. Besides, understanding the needs of the business is important as the consultative responsibility of the recruiter is essential to ensure the recruiter is proactive in identifying the business needs and plan rather than being called when there is an opening or somebody resigns. A candidate’s experience is another measure of a plan’s success as it will drive future applications from those not selected and a good reputation in the marketplace. 

Risk Assessment of Technological Changes and the Impact on Real Estate Industry 

Technology has changed the way real estate transacts it businesses and the sector have benefited from enhanced inefficiencies such as e-signing, virtual tours, and online listings. However, with the shift towards mobile, the focus has moved from efficiency to a different dimension. The mobile-centered technology has transformed the real estate through customer expectations, access to information and client service (Garebaglow, 2016). However, there is little resistance to technological change as dependent on technology can result in problems in people-centered business as well as losing touch with clients. Another challenge is older agents having difficulties learning how to conduct business in a mobile world as it involves new ways of communication and it is a basic change in the way things are done. Today, the successful real estate agent must have a smartphone or a tablet filled with apps which are impactful as the internet (Davison, 2014). Whereas internet restructured consumerism in essential and important ways, how clients manage their lives with inescapable mobile technology is still a new field. 

In a landscape of applications and social media, the world is changing, and some of the trends are a significant increase in mobile searches for information about real estate. Brokers who do not incur expenses to update their websites and introduce a mobile technology are likely to be outpaced in attracting and serving customers (Zhang, Zhu, & Ye, 2016). There is also the capacity to access information remotely by clients whether they are checking comparable, selling real estate, publishing the condition of the property, there are chances that one can find, access and respond to inquiries and information without reaching the office or making a call. Also, timeliness of transaction can be shortened and simplified (Clement, 2015). The need for staff and office support is likely to decrease since as sophisticated mobile applications are improved, the interfaces become more applicable to mobile devices and office computers (Designing Buildings Limited, 2017). The future is likely to be more of cloud-based. There is no difficulty in buying and relocating or selling the property in far-fetched locations. Social media exposure has got branding benefits such as LinkedIn which is associated with networking potentials, YouTube intended for visual appeal, Facebook pages, Houzz boards and Pinterest accounts. Each platform serves a different purpose, though they all increase visibility by their successful marketing effort. 

However, there are some downsides of the changing technology on real estate development that include losing touch with people. There must be a constant need to build individual relationships. Besides, the new technology comes with a lot of maintenance cost. The goal of applying new technology to make transactions of businesses cheaper, easier, faster and better will cost a lot. 

The Changes in Recruitment and Retention of the Top Talent in the Industry 

The changes in recruitment and retention of top talent in real estate must focus on a staffing model that is of importance in future. There are major management challenges such as expecting personnel changes, attracting as well as retaining young employees, reengaging and retaining the mid-career employees, adopting flexible benefits and compensations, and retaining and leveraging mature employees (Lee, 2016). 

There must be a focus on staffing categories that present a planning strategy which draws a connection to real estate sector activities. The first category should be a ground-up development which is a build-to-suit or design-build approach to hiring professionals of early career to mid-career to train as well as develop skills and capabilities for both current and future needs. 

The second category is referred to as renovation, rehabilitation, and repositioning which incorporates the development of new skills alongside knowledge of existing organization's staff to position them to carry out new and expanded duties in the future. The category also involves progression in career and promotion and horizontal against vertical career development (Meng, Wang, Chen, Zhang, Yang, Wang, & Zheng, 2016). The next category is an acquisition, which entails sourcing and hiring of external talent to fill the immediate and long-term duties where the strength of the bench does not exist internally. Disposition as another category involves the separation of staff that is cultural misfits and non-performers. Lastly, Portfolio and core asset management deals with employee retention. 

References 

Barrie & District Association of Realtors. (2017). Buying & selling. Barrie & District Association of Realtors. Retrieved on 2 March 2018, from https://www.bdar.ca/buysell. 

Clement, G. R. (2015).  U.S. Patent Application No. 14/536,857 . 

Craig, M. (2015). Cost-effectiveness of retaining top internal talent in contrast to recruiting top talent. In  Competition Forum . Retrieved on 2 March 2018, from https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-3916623551/cost-effectiveness-of-retaining-top-internal-talent. 

Davison, J. C. (2014).  U.S. Patent Application No. 14/248,880 . 

Designing Buildings Limited. (2017). Designing buildings limited. Industry Disruption: 10 Ways Real Estate is Changing . Retrieved on 2 March 2018, from https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Industry_Disruption:_10_ways_real_estate_is_changing. 

Garebaglow, S. (2016, April 4). How technology is changing the real estate industry. World Economic Forum . Retrieved March 2, 2018, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/how-technology-is-changing-the-real-estate-industry/. 

Lee, C. (2016). Attracting and retaining tech talent. NAIOP: Commercial Real Estate Development Association. Retrieved on 2 March 2018, from https://www.naiop.org/en/Magazine/2016/Summer-2016/Business-Trends/Attracting-and-Retaining-Tech-Talent. 

Meng, F., Wang, X., Chen, H., Zhang, J., Yang, W., Wang, J., & Zheng, Q. (2016). The influence of organizational culture on talent management: A case study of a real estate company.  Journal of Chinese Human Resource Management ,  7 (2), 129-146. 

Regents of the University of California. (2015). Recruitment & selection hiring process. University of California, Riverside: Human Resources . Retrieved on 2 March 2018, from https://hr.ucr.edu/recruitment/guidelines/process.html#step3. 

Zhang, D., Zhu, P., & Ye, Y. (2016). The effects of E-commerce on the demand for commercial real estate.  Cities ,  51 , 106-120.