Talent Acquisition strategies for the Real Estate sector

The key to the success of an organization are its people. Hiring, engaging and retaining people are crucial for the sustenance of a business. To achieve this, recruitment teams need to be talent magnets in order to attract the right candidates. Strategy will change from time to time based on the prevailing situation and the type of talent organizations are looking for.

Some of the strategies that can be adopted are:

Structured Hiring 

One among the important choices the talent acquisition teams need to adopt is a structured hiring process. A structured hiring process involves steps including defining an ideal candidate’s profile matching the business objectives of the job, having a transparent process in place to assess the candidates and having verified data and information for making hiring decisions.

Companies need to have dedicated creative postings on social media networks to create awareness of the new opportunities within the organization. Employees who view them can refer or tag others in their circle, who might be interested in the opportunity, which is great for building a talent pool for the company.

It is evident from LinkedIn research that only about 36% of potential candidates are job seekers; more than 90% of them are interested in hearing about new job opportunities.

Employee Referrals

Employee referrals are quite popular and an effective method of identifying ideal candidates based on the recommendations of current employees of the company. By formulating and adopting a good employee referral program, employers can get quality candidates and better ROI by cutting down on recruitment cost. Research has also proven that referred employees stay longer with companies. In our experience, in Real estate over 60% of candidates are selected through employee referrals. 

Employees who refer friends/ex colleagues to open positions at their company are more likely to adapt the company culture and from experience, such candidates share similar values to their own when giving referrals. 

The advantages of a referral program are the reach to passive job seekers – individuals who may be open to changing jobs but are not necessarily actively looking for a change / opportunity on their own. We have seen this while looking for a particular skill set, example: candidates having experience in a five-star hotel project. In the real estate industry, at times, it is a challenge to find the right candidate between project sign off and deployment at the project site. Therefore, when a known person contacts them, they are likely to take notice and come forward to take up the interview. 

Social Recruiting

Social media channels are extensively used for the purpose of recruiting, including platforms like LinkedIn, facebook, etc. This includes sourcing ideal candidates from job portals, blogs, forums, job boards and websites like Glassdoor in order to find, attract and recruit the best talent. The benefits of social recruiting are:

• To get more referrals
• Reach passive job searching candidates
• Target best fit candidates
• Establish direct connection with potential candidates 
• Optimize cost
• Showcase company culture

Campus Placements

Selection of Students from premium institutions are an effective way to hire quality candidates who are competent, energetic, enthusiastic and most importantly interested in working for the organization. Organizations build up their loyalty through the campus selection process. Fresh and talented graduates work more closely with their first company and can be groomed to adopt the brand values and then endorse those values. Also, positive feedback from selected students enhances the interest among future batches to join the organization. 

Companies where mentoring and opportunities for career progression are in place have had team members who were campus hires and now have grown up the ranks over the last 10 -12 years to manage large scale projects.   

Improving recruitment experience 

Experience that a potential candidate goes through while being recruited in an organization is a critical part in the entire process. Organizations need to align their recruitment strategy on a ‘customer first’ approach instead of a ‘Customer-centric’ approach with a ‘candidate-first’ mentality to improve the recruitment experience for the candidate. 

Positive candidate experience is the current, past and future of the candidate’s overall perception about a company and its recruitment process. A candidate’s experience is basically his feelings, behaviors and attitudes which they experience during the whole recruiting process, right from sourcing to screening to interviewing then hiring and finally the onboarding.

Performance & Rewards 

Rewards and incentive schemes have always been significant to the relationship between employers and employees as well as critical to employee motivation, and account for a significant organizational expense. Post COVID-19, the new working model has forced organizations to rethink and rewrite the approach towards employee assessment and rewarding strategies. It is also critical that a close check is kept on compensation spend against the business performance. However, there are various challenges such as structuring compensation and benefits for quarantined employees. 

Conclusion 

To maintain a sense of direction and purpose during times of stress and unpredictability, employers have allowed employees to continue to work from home where it is feasible. Also, it is important for the employers to stay focused on motivating and keeping their employees engaged. With the majority of the workforce working from home, innovative employee engagement initiatives like online quiz and games can help break the monotony and bring fun to work. Companies need to rollout and encourage employees to enhance their skills through online training sessions which will also help in personal development and career enhancement.