Apartment property managers are burning out from the pandemic, and that’s leaving their companies scrambling to hire during a labor shortage. When you’re in the midst of a labor shortage, hiring a property manager isn’t just another task to take care of — it’s essential to keep your business afloat. It can also be an overwhelming situation when the pressure is high.
Property manager turnover is at its highest levels ever, and the average apartment community manager sticks around for a mere 19.2 months. Professionals are frustrated by several conditions:
- Lack of adequate compensation/hazard pay
- Increased workload with little appreciation
- Flood of communication from corporate offices — often with constantly changing policies
The frustrations get exacerbated as good employees leave, creating even heavier workloads for those who stay.
Let’s take a look at some important tips for hiring a great property manager during a labor shortage.
1. Don’t Hire Fast
When you’re understaffed, it’s incredibly tempting to get vacant positions filled as soon as possible. You can’t operate in that state for long and your business will suffer as a result.
- Balls get dropped
- Vacant properties take longer to fill
- Current tenants get poor service and break their leases
- Staff burnout means more turnover
But more often than not, hiring fast doesn’t prevent any of those problems. A quick hire is almost always a bad hire, and that means your new property manager will create the same kinds of problems that being understaffed will cause.
The only difference is, you’re stuck with the new hire while your best people are likely to leave.
Instead, prioritize hiring a great property manager over hiring fast. Don’t settle for a warm body, even when it means pulling double duty for a while.
In the meantime, communicate with your employees and tenants and explain the situation to them. Assure them that you’ll only hire the best property manager, because you want them to have the best. During the hiring process, keep the lines of communication open and be willing to hear your stakeholders’ questions and concerns.
2. Do Hire Efficiently
Just because you aren’t rushing the hiring process, that doesn’t mean you should hire slowly. When you’re dealing with a labor shortage, you need to hire a property manager as efficiently as possible.
Follow these best practices to streamline your hiring process:
- Create very specific, highly targeted job ads. Be crystal clear about the job and what kind of person you’re looking for. Think of the ad like a marketer — you want to attract the best candidates in a way that makes your company irresistible to property managers.
- Ask for referrals. Don’t trust job boards alone to bring in great candidates. Talk to people you know who might be connected to ideal applicants. Referrals can be your best recruiting tool, because they come from people who know you well, and know the job candidates. They’re a built-in screening tool.
- Use hiring software to manage the process. These applications make it easier to track your progress, organize your information, and even automate many of your time consuming tasks.
- Be responsive. Even during the Great Resignation, job candidates often complain that hiring managers are slow to respond. The longer you take to move applicants through the hiring process, the more likely you are to let the good ones get away.
3. Always Be Recruiting Property Managers
The worst time to hire a property manager is when you’re desperate for a property manager. Most property management companies start the hiring process from square one, with no one in the pipeline that you can immediately begin interviewing.
But if you’re constantly recruiting and keeping an eye out for great property managers, you’ll have ideal candidates you can immediately approach as soon as you need to hire.
4. Take the Interview Process Seriously
The interview isn’t merely a formality — a successful hire depends on it. For many hiring managers, interviewing is something of a black box. It’s hard to know what questions to ask, or how to identify a good response from a mediocre one. What should you be looking for during the interview?
Asking good questions is essential to hiring a great property manager, but there’s more to the interview than that. These interview best practices will help you make a better informed hiring decision:
- Be fully prepared before the interview. When you’re organized and have all your materials together, you’ll be in a better state of mind to pay attention to your interviewee.
- Pay attention to the intangibles. Will they fit the company culture? Did they establish a rapport with you? Are they a good communicator? Can you picture them performing well as a property manager?
- Take notes. Don’t simply record the candidate’s responses, but also note important items of interest — for example, professional appearance, preparedness, friendliness/rapport, communication skills, etc.
- Don’t ignore your gut reaction. If you have a bad feeling about someone, take it seriously.
Download a sample list of interview questions for Property Manager job interviews.
5. Be the Kind of Place Where Great Property Managers Want to Work
One of the most important factors in a successful hire is keeping your employees around! Being a great place to work not only reduces your turnover rate, it also attracts the best property manager candidates.
Right now, great property management companies are those that are listening to their property managers and responding to the challenges of the pandemic. Provide hazard pay and compensate your overworked property managers well. Do what you can to lighten the workload and show them your appreciation — in more ways than one. Provide consistency, and find out the ways your employees need to be supported most.
Say Goodbye to Panic Hiring!
No one likes to find themselves hiring property managers in the midst of a labor shortage. But you can get on top of the wave by following these best practices. Hire great people and create an environment where all-star professionals want to work and you’ll reduce the panic hiring and last minute scrambles to fill vacant positions.
Looking for good hiring resources? Download Tenant Turner’s helpful checklist: 18 Must-ask Interview Questions When Hiring a Property Manager.
