How to Hire without Industry

For RPM Careers Month, HAA encourages you to recruit, hire and retain job candidates with strong, transferable skills. By KATHY CLEM, AAA Staffing

How to Hire without Industry Experience

The apartment industry can do its part to boost the Houston employment rate by considering candidates who lack direct multifamily experience but who have strong applicable skills. Really, promoting RPM Careers Month is more about strengthening our industry by recruiting, hiring and retaining quality candidates.

April is Residential Property Management Careers Month. Every April, the National Apartment Association reaches out to job seekers to promote the apartment industry as a viable career. RPM Careers Month is also targeted to hiring personnel within our industry to evaluate talent more effectively by exploring what NAA calls core competencies, rather than previous industry experience.

Supply in the Houston-area’s markets need to increase by 15,000 units each year to keep up with demand according to www.weareapartments.org. The growing supply and demand for rental housing in the Houston area creates an ongoing need to staff our apartment communities in management, leasing and maintenance positions. While researching information for this article, I went to an online job website and searched for leasing consultant and assistant manager job openings within 25 mile-radius of Houston. There were 416 open positions. When I completed a similar search for apartment maintenance jobs, there were over 1,200 open positions.

The data shows the apartment industry needs employees. It’s time apartment owners and managers embrace transferable skills. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an unemployment rate in the Houston area of 3.6% in December 2019. The apartment industry can do its part to boost the Houston employment rate by considering candidates who lack direct multifamily experience but who have strong applicable skills. Really, promoting RPM Careers

Employers may find that community manager and maintenance supervisor positions are best suited for candidates with both industry skills and experience. But are you missing valuable recruiting and hiring opportunities in your entry and mid-level positions by not placing more weight on transferrable skills and abilities that candidates outside of the multifamily industry can bring to your company?

Month is more about strengthening our industry by recruiting, hiring and retaining quality candidates.

Here is my process for recruiting, hiring and retaining candidates to our industry.

Recruiting

How do multifamily employers recruit, hire and retain great employees who don’t have prior experience? Let’s start with the recruiting process. I reviewed job postings for open leasing agent and assistant manager positions. What I found was “experience required” or “experience preferred” listed in the job postings. Similar requirements were listed on job postings for makeready technicians, with one year or more of apartment maintenance experience required/preferred. Numerous job postings also listed “must have” or “required” experience with specific property management software. Even though different companies utilize the similar property management software, each company uses the software with policies and rules specifically for their company. Is your job posting attracting qualified candidates for your open positions? If not, consider the following questions.

• Is past experience always the best indicator for future performance?

• Do you choose a candidate based on their experience listed on their resume or based off their approach to handle situations, projects and tasks they will face in the position you are interviewing them for?

• If a candidate has strong, transferrable computer skills, does your company have training available on the software that you use? If not, should you?

• What is more important when interviewing potential candidates for a position? A) A candidate’s industry experience or B) A candidate’s transferrable skills?

The bottom line is, it’s not always as easy as picking A or B, especially in the multifamily industry. Employers may find that community manager and maintenance supervisor positions are best suited for candidates with both industry skills and experience. But are you missing valuable recruiting and hiring opportunities in your entry and mid-level positions by not placing more weight on transferrable skills and abilities that candidates outside of the multifamily industry can bring to your company? By opening your candidate pool to include applicants outside of the apartment industry, you may reduce your hiring costs, the number of days the job is open and bring new talent into our industry.

Hiring

Hiring starts with the interview. Although you should consider interviewing for transferrable skills and abilities, you can include questions about an applicant’s past experience by asking behavioral questions to obtain insight into how a candidate has han dled situations in their career to determine if those behaviors and skills are a good fit for the position.

A few examples: • Describe a time when your company (community or team) was undergoing change. How did that impact you and how did you adapt to the change?

• There are days when it’s next to impossible to get everything on your to-do list done. Tell me about a time your responsibilities got a little overwhelming. How did you handle that?

• Give me an example of a time when you had to explain something complex or unavoidable to a frustrated resident. How did you manage this situation?

• Tell me about a time you were dissatisfied at work. What could have been done to make it better? What could you have done? What did you do to make it better? • You are in the middle of completing a service request and realize that you don’t know all the steps required to complete the repair. What do you do?

These questions can provide specific insight into an applicant’s approach to situations in the workplace and how their responses fit with your needs for the position you are trying to fill. Applicants with experience in hospitality, retail sales and customer service could be great candidates for leasing positions while those with office experience, accounting and/or bookkeeping background could be your best assistant manager candidate. For makeready positions, consider applicants with maintenance experience in other industries including hotel or hospitality, commercial building maintenance, home building and construction industries.

In addition to behavioral questions, skill assessments are a good investment for employers if each position is benchmarked to the appropriate skills and behaviors needed to build your team. How many applicants applying for a maintenance position have you passed over because they don’t have onsite maintenance experience? If you opened your search, you may find that there are candidates that you have overlooked before that would have scored high marks on the skillbased tests that give you some great insight into their strengths and their willingness for development within your organization.

Another way to determine if a candidate is the right fit for your company is to “try them before you hire them.” If you have a strong candidate who is not currently employed, having them work onsite through a temporary agency for a week or two before making them a permanent employee could give both you and the candidate the information needed to make the best hiring decision.

Retaining

Existing Employees: Before going into how to retain new employees, I have a question. Does your company have a strong emphasis to identify and train current employees for internal promotions and transfers? If not, you should. If you are not offering your current employees opportunities to grow, achieve and be recognized as valuable assets to your organization, they may be looking for a com- pany who will. Promote a culture of “on the job” training for development and advance- ment. Utilize in-house and apartment associ- ation training, including the NALP, CAM, CAMT, CAPS credential programs, to fill you next open position internally. New Employees: Allocate resources to develop and maintain a robust onboarding program that is targeted to each position to help new employees receive the information and training they will need.

Set new hires and your existing employees up for success. Invest in your employees’ suc- cess by implementing formalized mentor pro- grams and ongoing training and development programs. Managers and human resources departments can incorporate regular checkins during the first 90-days of employment, and beyond, to ensure open communication around expectations and their work product. Recruiting and hiring can be time consum- ing, costly and overwhelming, especially when you are already short-staffed. By taking a step back to rethink your approach to recruiting, hiring and retaining employees, you can cre- ate a hiring model that successfully impacts employee satisfaction and engagement for new and existing employees leading to higher employee retention.

Kathy O’Connell Clem, CPM, has over 35 years of property management expe- rience. She works with AAA Staffing, an employment agency servicing the apartment industry nationwide since 1998, providing tempo- rary, temporary-to-permanent, and perma- nent placement services. Clem is also the owner of Vast Resource Coaching and Consulting, providing professional and personal development coaching to indi- viduals and teams and consulting to the property management industry.