Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Recruiting Insight Podcast, where we help you connect with the most successful recruiters and hiring managers and innovators in real estate recruiting. Today, I'll be joined by Leigh Gray from ThirdPool Recruiting. While I've worked closely with Leigh for many years, I occasionally just have to step back and remember some of the remarkable things that she's accomplished. She has trained and coached some of the highest performing recruiters in the real estate industry, and she's the first person I turn to when things are going haywire in any organization because I want her at my side when a recruiting system needs to be fixed and results are on the line. Leigh, welcome to Recruiting Insight Podcast.

Speaker 2: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, we often have a dispute of how long we've been working together. I often say that we've been working together a decade, but you sometimes correct me.

Speaker 2: I do. A decade and a half. Those five years matter.

Speaker 1: It does. You started, I think, in 2007 and have been a great part of the ThirdPool team for many years. I wanted to start our discussion today by talking about some of your experience working with recruiters and hiring managers and owners. I think of anybody that I know, you probably have more experience just in every single aspect of those roles when it comes to recruiting than anyone I know. Let's start by talking about recruiters and recruiting coordinators, particularly. We're kind of clear on what we're going to be discussing here. We're talking primarily today about new agent recruiting, which is what you focus on, at least in this role. With new agent recruiting, you often have somebody that's making the initial connection between the candidate and the organization. We call that a recruiting coordinator. Of all the years that you've been working on this, what do you see as the characteristics of someone who's super effective at that job?

Speaker 2: Well, first, they have to want to do it. A big part of the breakdown when we bring on a new account, for example, is they just find somebody that's in the organization, maybe a receptionist or an administrative assistant who didn't originally sign on for this type of role. They get into it, and I train them, and they don't want to talk to people, or they don't want to do the work. When you don't like what you're doing, you don't do it that well, and the diagnosis happens in the numbers. When I see something is floundering, then I can jump in, and I usually know pretty quickly whether or not a coordinator is going to make it, but they need to want to do the work, like tasks-oriented jobs. I always ask them, if you have a to-do list, do you get engagement with crossing off something off your to-do list? If they say, yes, I love that, I'm like, this is the job for you, because it's very routine, and then the tasks are pretty repetitive, and now with the advent of texting, there's just a lot more of that, so it's less picking up the phone and calling people at that stage in the recruiting process.

Speaker 1: What I hear is motivation. The person has to be motivated and focused and want to do the work, and then secondly, they tend to be to be a task-oriented, check off the tasks on a list sort of person. Has anything changed in the last few years since we've gone to more texting or more of those types of things?

Speaker 2: Yes. The engagement level with the candidate has increased, I would say, at least 30%, at least. Back in the dial-for-dollar days, before we had texting, everybody had to pick up the phone. That was another thing. Some of the not-successful recruiting coordinators didn't want to actually talk to people, and that's a problem in recruiting, so that was something else that would bubble up, but a lot of people don't pick up their phone. They don't recognize the number, so it goes to voicemail, then they forget to look at it, but with texting, you know they're getting your message. There's no refuting that, and there's a level of screening that's involved in that for quality and things like that, but the texting, we're able to reach more candidates where they are in the moment. It's very reactive and responsive, and the candidates, I mean, I get a lot of compliments like, hey, thanks so much for reaching out to me so quickly, and a lot of that's part of the system and automation and things like that.

Speaker 1: So it sounds counterintuitive, but it seems like maybe the engagement or even the rapport that you're able to build with a candidate is higher now through texting than it would be through a brief phone call before. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 2: I mean, I say that because we're connecting with more people, so recruiting is about connections, right? It's about building relationships and things like that, so the more people you're connected to, the more at-bats you're going to have to find the quality candidates that you want to hire. So back when we were just calling, we were talking to fewer people. Now we're chatting with a lot more people, and we're seeing quality interviews, we're seeing better hires and things like that by virtue of just being able to talk to the people where they are.

Speaker 1: Okay. That makes sense. So we've always said that at some level or another, recruiting is a numbers game, right? So you do have to go through a lot of people, talk to a lot of people, connect with a lot of people, really, to find the good ones. It sounds like texting and some of the other technology things that have come on the scene here in the last few years have empowered that process, not diminished it.

Speaker 2: Correct. Absolutely. I mean, you think about the big corporations doing video interviews. I mean, that's like my son did it and was a bot, and he just had to sit there looking at a camera and answer the questions. We're not at that AI level or anything like that, but the texting is keeping up with those trends.

Speaker 1: So do you feel like talking to a bot would be worse or better?

Speaker 2: I think the texting is still personal, right? So once they respond to a text, answer a question we ask them, then the person's involved. It's like back and forth with them, and it doesn't feel like a robot. I can occasionally get asked, what's four plus eight, to make sure I'm not a bot, but that's very rare. But yeah, it's still very personal.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we all text to our friends and loved ones and others, and it isn't like we're not communicating with them, we're actually communicating quite thoroughly or in an in-depth way often. Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about hiring managers. So we have the recruiting coordinator. This is the first connection that someone makes to the prospect, to the organization. That's kind of their first point of entry. At some point, that prospect, of course, needs to connect to a hiring manager. And that connection usually is an interview. It could be an interview, an online interview, a Zoom interview, something like that. Or it could, of course, be an in-person interview. So what do you notice for a hiring manager? What are some of the characteristics of the best hiring managers that you've ever worked

Speaker 2: with? Well, again, they have to want to talk to people. And I know one of the things, we did a poll, I don't know how many years ago, of hiring managers. And they wear five hats, deal doctoring, coaching, training, putting out fires, and recruiting. And recruiting was by far the least favorite thing that they wanted to do. Real estate recruiting, if you're doing new agent recruiting, it's a longer pipeline. It's not a quick hire. It's not immediate gratification. So there needs to be some more work in nurturing and relationship building that goes into that recruiting strategy. So the people that actually, and I call it intentional attention, just making sure you're staying in touch with them periodically, checking in on them, maybe inviting them to come into sales meetings, or just kind of, I have this liaison. If you want to hire somebody in a new agent perspective, treat them like they're hired. Give them as many opportunities to get involved in your culture as you can. So just by doing that alone, you're building that rapport, and the success will happen with the hire versus them going to a competitor.

Speaker 1: Okay, so this is something I think that our viewers could really take away from. And I don't see a lot of hiring managers that kind of look at recruiting, especially new agent recruiting this way, that I'm going to engage someone as if they're already working for me, as if they're hired. Is that what you're saying? Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. In fact, we have an account in Colorado, and they have about 40 classes that are practical classes. They don't go towards state required hours. They're very practical, and their agents take these classes, and they welcome people that are in school. Hey, start learning the practice of real estate before you even get your license, so you can hit the ground running. That's a great example of bringing this person into the fold before they have their license. And then there's some loyalty there. And you're building the trust and all of that that goes into relationship building. At this point, they've interviewed probably with the recruiters there. And so that's the personal connection, the face-to-face, bringing them into the office and doing that, which is 100% needs to happen to do any hiring at all.

Speaker 1: Got it. So obviously, that personal connection could help with retention, retaining them in the recruiting process, not having them go to a competitor. And that's key. What about quality? Do you feel like that kind of strategy is a better way to hire quality people?

Speaker 2: Well, it depends on how selective they want to be, because there's a lot of customization that you can do in the screening process. We ask some automated questions, do you want to do this full-time, part-time, or to transition? They understand it's commissioned. They understand they have to get their license and things like that. And if you want to ask some other follow-up questions to do some more screening, you can do that. So it's based on the selection criteria that a company has, and it's communicated to the recruiting coordinator.

Speaker 1: So certainly, there would be a capacity over time to evaluate more of what this person's really about. Right. Right. OK. So it does have this philosophy of, let's get people a little bit earlier in the pipeline. Let's work with them a little bit. Let's get them engaged in our organization. It seems to have a few benefits that could really result in better hiring, more consistent hiring, and not having people go into competitors once you interview them.

Speaker 2: Well, and there's a PR component. And I say this to all my clients. They may not become an agent, but by virtue of the way you're treating them, they could well become a client or refer somebody. So there's some ancillary benefits to the way people are being treated in the hiring process.

Speaker 1: Good. Good point on that. So let's wrap up by kind of pivoting to the final kind of equation or person in the hiring process here. And that's the owner or the team leader that's involved in hiring. So there is a culture or a recruiting culture that certain owners kind of portray out to the organization. This is how we recruit. This is why we recruit. This is why recruiting is important. So if you worked with owners, what are some of the characteristics of the owners that seem to have the best recruiting organizations?

Speaker 2: Well, that they're not afraid of accountability. They're fine setting expectations and then holding themselves accountable to communicating and making sure that they're getting the data and the metrics to support their expectations, but then also going down to the manager level and holding them accountable for their execution and their performance in recruiting. And you put that all together with a system that does metric, does give you the data so you can make decisions about further strategy. Let's stop this. Let's do this. Things like that. But I think the CEOs of people that I've talked to when we lay it out for them, they understand a system and they understand a process, but then it's that third level of accountability in order to make it successful that has to happen within the company.

Speaker 1: So accountability is always something that's a little bit tricky because, you know, I think we can all say, hey, accountability is great. We really want to do that. But then there's sometimes some, some strain that happens between the owner and the manager. You know, it feels like they got a stick in their hand and they're, they're whacking them with it. So what if, have you noticed any owners that have been able to, to produce a, an environment of accountability, but still have a super positive relationship with those managers?

Speaker 2: Yeah, we have one in Indiana. I mean, they're going to see this, are going to know who they are, but the CEO there, they have about 30 offices, I believe. And he has this strategy where each, he wants each office to hire five agents, new or experienced, whatever it is, five agents. So you can do the math there to see how many, you know, they'll, they'll hire over the course

Speaker 1: of the year. 150 agents.

Speaker 2: I can do that math. All right. There you go. So that's a good goal and the most, they almost always get it, but he does a little fun reward for them. I know it's a little bit more complex, but fundamentally it does, you know, every month they have a sales meeting who got their five, who got their five. And then if you raise your hand, you get a pin and there's at a $20, like basically lunch, you can go get lunch. Now that you've got your five, $20 in their hand. And then every time they come back to a sales meeting with their button, even though they've already gotten their five, they get, no, that's the $20, or is that the $5?

Speaker 1: Exactly. So, so when they get their five initially they, they, I think they get a little small bonus, a hundred bucks or something like that at the meeting. You come up, you got your five here and you get a button that says, I got my five. And then every meeting after that, that they come because they've got their five by June in the year, then every, every meeting after that, they would have a, they wear their button. If they wear their button, they get recognized, Hey, everybody's got their, their button on. It's got their five already come up. Here's $20 for everybody. Go get lunch after the meeting. And then of course they recognize the new people that come.

Speaker 2: And it's working for them. It really is.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It has been, it's, it's worked for many years. And that's Dave Kavanagh, by the way, at Carpenter Realtors in Indiana. So well, Lee, we're going to wrap up today. I really appreciate you joining us and, and helping us really kind of diagnose the whole recruiting process, the new agent recruiting process from the recruiting coordinator position to the hiring manager position, and then to the owners level as well. So as each of those is an intricate part. And if we don't really address each one of those with a certain type of person, a certain type of activity, a certain type of accountability, then of course there's going to be places where the, the system kind of breaks down and, and we don't see good results. So so thanks Lee for joining us and all those who, who listened today hopefully you'll be able to take away something that you can you can apply in your organization. So, so take what you've learned and go make a difference.