Should you Hire an In-House Recruiter

The decision to hire an in-house real estate recruiter is a big one. Doing so requires a major investment of time and money and there’s no guarantee the individual works out. But, there are a few scenarios where it makes sense to have one individual handle the entire agent recruiting process.

Scenario #1 – You have multiple managers and they struggle to recruit agents

If your managers don’t have the time or desire to generate recruiting appointments, hiring a recruiting appointment setting service like ours makes more sense than hiring a recruiter. It’s less expensive and you don’t have to train anyone on recruiting.

But, if your managers are getting appointments yet not converting them into joins and training/accountability hasn’t helped, then an in-house recruiter is your best option.

Scenario #2 – You’re a new brokerage and you want to grow quickly

If you’re still doing real estate deals, you’ve opened a new brokerage, and you want to grow quickly, an in-house recruiter makes sense. Broker/owners still in production rarely have the time to generate sales, manage existing agents, and recruit.

An in-house recruiter can also make sense if you’ve opened a new brokerage and have zero recruiting experience or don’t have the desire to do it yourself. This is assuming, of course, you have the budget to hire someone.

Scenario #3 – You’re prefer to have specialists on staff instead of generalists

In smaller brokerages, one or two individuals typically handle the full range of responsibilities. They’re generalists (and there’s nothing wrong with that).

In some larger brokerages, there are specialized support staff handling responsibilities like marketing, accounting, compliance, transaction coordination, and admin. But, the managers are expect to handle everything else including deal doctoring, training, coaching, retention, and recruiting. So, they’re also generalists.

In other larger brokerages, most or all the staff are specialists. The managers are typically only responsible for supporting the agents. Training and coaching are handled by one or more individuals. There might even be an IT department or in-house legal counsel.

It’s in those brokerages having an in-house recruiter makes sense. It fits with the structure of the organization and the budget is typically there.

By the way, although we’ve used the term in-house recruiter in this post, it doesn’t mean the recruiter must be physically present in your office(s). You can often find someone with a strong recruiting or sales background willing to work remotely.