Outsourced Recruitment: A Creative Approach to Building Dream Teams

The job market has been changing radically over the past decade, and many companies are struggling to find new ways to attract, engage, and retain the best candidates. Some have moved towards Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) – here at Reimagine, we've taken it up yet another level.

Ready to experience outsourced recruitment as an art form? Stay with us as we approach recruitment with a fresh perspective, creating a strategic partnership with you for the long run.

Traditional recruitment agency methods were adopted during another era, the days of assembly line thinking. They focus on where and how to advertise, for example, and miss the subtle realities of the applicants.

They usually fall short in identifying top talent, and for a very simple reason:

they don’t know how to identify truly excellent talent, talent that doesn’t fit their mold.

The picture comes clear when you think about your last recruitment efforts. If you had an average success rate for the property management business, only 1 out of 3 of your hires stayed with you for more than a year. Dismal odds, indeed.

Recruitment as part of the process

Outsourced recruitment methods also tend to have a short-term focus. Our creative recruitment approach goes beyond just filling a position – we consider the bigger recruitment picture (think team building) and work with an organization's overall recruiting process. By looking at at turnover rates, technology, scalability, and how much time it takes to fill a position, our creative recruitment approach continues to evolve the process as a whole.

Here at Reimagine Property Management, we prefer to work with our clients ongoing, constantly improving their recruiting processes. Our unique approach to evaluating potential employees means we continue to establish and enhance a positive, scalable corporate culture. With an 8 out of 10 success rate, our results speak for themselves.

Skills vs potential

Outsourced recruitment often misses important subtleties when it advertises for and interviews potential employees. Take technology, for example. Most recruiters look for applicants’ knowledge of and experience with the apps currently in use within the corporation. That’s fair – wouldn’t it be great to hire talent that can hit the ground running?

The problem is that this approach often overlooks applicants who might have other needed skills plus a strong aptitude for adopting new technologies – candidates who might be the best choices in the long run.

If that seems like a small consideration, we have news for you:

Successful recruiting is an aggregate of small considerations.

That’s why successful recruitment is an art form, and it’s why intuitive, creative recruiters are far more successful than most.

Recruitment considerations: skills, abilities … character?

Again, how do you know what to look for, and how to recognize it when you see it? Well … as we said, it’s an aggregate of small considerations. Presuming you’re building a team (as opposed to a staff of isolated individuals), who do you think would make the best recruit: the person who has consistently outperformed his coworkers or one who has consistently outperformed himself?

If you said “that depends” you were right, because once again, there are considerations.

An important benchmark to consider is the applicants’ tenure at previous employment. Did he jump around? If he did but you really want him, this is a good time to take a reality check.

You’ll probably be tempted to believe he’ll stay with you because your company is unique … believe us, you wouldn’t be alone if you hoped for this. But there are many reasons a person jumps ship quickly or often, and they typically have nothing to do with the companies themselves. Chances are a superstar will continue his habit of bailing quickly – no matter how good your company is.

A candidate’s level of competitiveness is another important benchmark – is this applicant competitive to the point of never quite fitting into the team, or does she enjoy working with team members to move the entire company forward? You might be surprised at the number of recruiters who go for the flash instead of the staying power.

Skill levels

While an applicant’s skill levels at required functions are clearly important, they're just part of the equatiion. Take our example of technology,. An applicant who is flexible and resilient will learn whatever is needed. So, this brings us to the consideration that underlies them all: the applicant’s core abilities and characteristics.

Core abilities and characteristics

There’s nothing better than the person who walks the talk and always tries to do their best, but how do you identify that potential star? A lot of people can talk a good story (a word of caution: beware the hyperbole), but how to spot the real deal?

Actually, it's our experience that the real deals aren’t necessarily superstars, at least not just yet. Rather, they’re the individuals who possess the requisite characteristics that can be developed. We totally believe in in the viability and effectiveness of developing employees.

Here at Reimagine Property Management, we look for a candidate who, among other characteristics:

• is conscientious,

• does the right thing even when no one’s looking,

• has grit,

• is a hard worker,

• is compassionate,

• Is enthusiastic,

• Is competitive for the team.

That last one’s the kicker. When someone’s competitive for the team they’re a beauty to behold. Take Tom Brady, for example. Brady’s not a ‘me’ guy – it’s not all about him – but he’s one of the most competitive on the planet. Do his teammates love him? You bet they do because with him, it’s all about us.

Tom Brady and his team substantiate our contention that a People First, team-oriented culture (link to blog post PEOPLE FIRST) produces results that far exceed the norm.

Recruiting excellence

Once we’ve identified candidates with the best personal characteristics, we pinpoint those who perform at the highest level from an operations and culture standpoint, including their ability to perform the tasks required for that job.

The recruitment interview environment

An important ingredient in our recruitment interview strategy is our ability to disarm the applicant so he trusts and opens up. An honest applicant will go way beyond telling us what he thinks we want to hear – in fact, he will show us who he really is by saying things he otherwise might not have.

We create this interview environment by establishing an honest connection with the applicant. This puts him at ease, allowing us to develop a relationship of trust so we can discern if he is actually the right person for the position, the culture, the company. The result is a win-win – if the applicant is the right one for the job it will be a long-term success. If not, we will all be relieved of a situation that would eventually go south.

Outsourced Recruitment for long-term success

The above strategies are just the beginning of how we reimagine recruitment. The property management business is dynamic and ever-changing, making our intuitive flexibility a uniquely effective tool towards long-term success.

Contact Reimagine Property Management to explore how we can slow your revolving door and help develop a dynamic, integrated team. As we said earlier, we’re not in recruitment for the one and done. We develop strategic partnerships for long term success.