Recruitment marketing expert Jeff Dickey-Chasins points out how most companies source recruiting prospects. In broad terms, employers fall into one of two camps in their recruitment efforts:
‘posters’ and ‘hunters.’
Posters* are more than happy to post their jobs and wait for candidates to respond. Hunters search out candidates and contact them. Posters historically make up about 70% of all employers, versus 30% who are hunters. In traditional companies, posters have more success in an employer’s market (low number of jobs available and lots of candidates who want them). And hunters have more success in a candidate’s market (high number of jobs available and low number of candidates). But real estate hiring does not operate on this traditional cadence. New agent recruiting is best done with a ‘posters’ mentality and experienced agent recruiting is best done with a ‘hunters’ mentality. Because they hate hunting, some recruiters pretend experienced agent recruiting can be done through posting. Because of budget constraints, some recruiters pretend new agent recruiting can be done without posting. Like most things we pretend to be true, these mindsets produce disappointing results. *Note: Posters doesn’t just mean posting job ads. It’s any recruitment marketing activity that is designed to produce a flow of inbound recruiting leads.