WorkPuzzle

Shopping for a Broker: Are New Agents Buying What You’re Selling

Earlier this year, our company had the privilege of hiring Helen Jackson.  Helen is a very talented individual who I’ve known for many years.  She has served our community (a mid-sized suburb of Seattle) in many non-profit, education and athletic advisory roles.  She is known and admired by more people in our community than I could begin to count.

Her daughter Emily grew up playing baseball (not softball) with a couple of my sons.  I remember frequently asking my boys…"Did Emily strike you out today?" The answer was often…"Yes, she did!"  That’s a tough thing for a teenage boy to admit. Emily is now playing softball at a Division-I college in Illinois.

When Helen agreed to work with our company, I was eager to hear her perspective on our business and the role we play in the real estate industry.  Being competitive herself and working with so many high performers over the years, I suspected her insight would be helpful.

I’ve not been disappointed.  She has worked in a consulting role with one of our clients in the Midwest over the last couple of months.  As a recruiting coordinator, she works closely with both hiring managers and candidates.

Last week, she offered to record some of her thoughts on working in this new role.  Her thoughts (in this dialog) are from the candidate’s perspective, and I thought they were worth sharing.

"I've been working with Tidemark for several months as a recruiter and I am continuously surprised at how very few individuals truly understand the challenges and opportunities of becoming a real estate agent; particularly in choosing the right broker.

My mother was an agent and a broker well into her sixties and mentioned many times that it allowed her to survive as a middle-aged widow with no other form of income. As a broker, she had several agents working in her firm and she always said that making sure your agents were successful was the same as having a successful business.

But that was in the time of the real estate boom, in a small New England town where she knew most of the residents. What about today, I wondered?

Today, the real estate market seems to work like the stock market, albeit a little slower, but still driven by the economy and the whims of buyers and sellers. So, the broker an agent chooses is extremely important.

In researching what makes a great broker, I realized that the characteristics of a good broker are exactly what I would want in an agent if I were buying or selling a home.

I developed the following acronym to express those defining features:

Honesty. Tell me what I can expect financially and explain the relationship of the broker and agent in clear and concise terms.

Opportunity. What are the opportunities; how long will it take for me to realize the opportunity and where are the pitfalls?

Mentoring. What classes and training are offered. Who teaches the classes? Is there a fee?

Expenses. What are they? Do you assist in developing an expenses spreadsheet? What are the splits? Can I really make a profit? How?

Support. Are you there for me? Can I come to you for advice; encouragement? Do you reach out to me to see how I am doing?"

 

Do a quick inventory:  Do you find yourself positively addressing these issues during your interactions with candidates?  It’s important to remember that new agents are “buying” a business relationship with their broker. Helen has done a great job of identifying what many of the best buyers are seeking.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

How to Reach the Recruiting Goal Line-Part 2

Hopefully, you had the opportunity to read Part 1 of this discussion.  I thought Dave did a great job of explaining how gaining momentum in the recruiting process requires a focus on completing small tasks over time.  If you’re not a football fan—hang in there: We’re almost done with the football analogies.

For the Seahawks, the “small task” that kept them out of the end zone (a week ago Monday) was a failure to convert on 3^rd down. 

Likewise, if you’re experiencing a lack of hires, the source of the problem is always earlier in the hiring process.  If you identify and fix the upstream problems, the hires will come.

After reading Dave’s post, I spent some time studying the source article in the Seattle Times, and I was surprised what I discovered.   There was a short quote by one of Seattle’s receivers that caught my attention:

"Every week Pete Carroll (the Seahawk’s Head Coach) asks his team a rhetorical question, in which the answer never changes.

Said receiver Sidney Rice, ‘He always asks us…what do we have to do to win in third and 10-plus? And the answer is always: Stay out of that situation.'

The Seahawks have not done a good job avoiding third-and-long situations. The Seahawks have had 29 third downs this season and 21 of them have been 3rd-and-6 or longer. Of those 21, 14 have been 3rd-and-10 or longer.

Seattle has converted on 38 percent of those third downs, which ranks 18th in the league, but it’s not a sustainable way to operate. Rice said facing 3rd-and-long allows defenses to play Seattle differently than they normally have to because the threat to run the ball is gone. "

I think there are two applications from this part of the article:

1.  Professionals use metrics.  Considering these guys are a bunch of dumb football jocks, they sure do use math a lot!  Why?  Because they’re professionals, and professionals use metrics.  You should know and track the recruiting metrics that lead to your hiring success—that’s what professionals do.

2.  Don’t do all of your recruiting on 3^rd down.   Our staff works with hundreds of real estate hiring managers in different parts of the country.  At least once a week, we hear one or more of these hiring managers try to convince themselves they don’t want to meet with “new to real estate” candidates until they are already licensed or actively enrolled in real estate school. 

In recruiting, this is equivalent to gaining no yardage on 1^st and 2^nd down and facing 3^rd down and long yardage on every interview.  At this point in the recruiting game, your competitors know exactly what you’re going to do and will easily key upon your weaknesses. 

We have one client who insists on conducting only late stage interviews.  They regularly lose 50% of their recruiting opportunities to competitors—even though they are the best company in their market.   

This happens because they wait too long to engage the candidates.  At this point in the hiring process, the candidates have no relationship with the hiring manager.  They are very susceptible to being fooled by lower splits, accepting gimmicky promotions, and believing promises that will never be kept.

In contrast, we regularly see clients who engage candidates early in the process that have “lost to competitor” rates of 10% or less.  Why?  The candidates tend to sign with the person they trust.   When objections are raised late in the hiring process, they can be thoughtfully discussed and handled with the candidate’s best interest in mind. 

Getting the hire under these conditions is often a small nudge at the end of the process instead of lobbing a pass into a crowded group of competitors and hoping for the best.

How did the Seahawks do last Sunday?  They had a huge come-from-behind win in overtime against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  While there were definitely some miraculous plays that helped them win, there was a small stat buried in the box score that many people will overlook:

"The Seahawks converted eight of 12 third-down situations, for a season-high percentage (.667), including their final six. The Seahawks finished with 415 yards, their third-highest total of the season. Their 26 first downs were the second-highest total."

The Seahawks learned their lesson and put themselves in a position to win.  Hopefully, you will do the same.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

How to Reach The Recruiting Goal Line

If you happen to be a football fan you will know that the recent Monday Night Football game, Seattle Seahawks vs. the St. Louis Rams, was a disappointing win for the Hawks. 

That’s right a win, not a loss; so why disappointing? 

The Seahawks, as do many other professional sports teams rely on consistency, rhythm and what some might call “staying on schedule” to reach that ultimate goal – the touchdown.

The comments about that game, from the Hawks coaches and players, may give some insight into reaching your own goal line. 

The following is an excerpt from an article in the Seattle Times. 

"Quarterback Russell Wilson always talks about staying on schedule. By that he means picking up positive yards on first down, then doing the same on second down to be in good position on third down. Negative plays or no-gains throw Seattle off schedule.

 That’s what happened against the Rams. The Seahawks averaged just 1.1 yards on first down, and that’s not including a penalty on guard J.R. Sweezy. As a result, Seattle was just 2 for 11 on third down and now ranks 28th in the league in third-down efficiency.

“I don’t think we were good on any down,” Baldwin said. “First down was terrible as well. We couldn’t stay on schedule, couldn’t get any rhythm.”

As a recruiter or hiring manager, you are the quarterback of the recruiting function of your business. It is up to you to make sure you get that “yardage on the first down” that lets you stay on schedule and move “down the field.”

You do this by knowing what you want to accomplish, finding efficiencies in your plan, and keeping on schedule to ultimately meet your objective. None of these objectives are possible without metrics.

To continue the sports analogy, what if we divided your ultimate goal into "downs?"

Just like football, getting to the next down requires building a schedule of tasks and analyzing the results.   Examining the metrics is the best way to win in recruiting. 

Here is a list of common recruiting metrics that should become second nature to any recruiting professional within the real estate industry:

Number of connections with candidates: (live calls or email exchanges)

Number of additions to pipeline (permission to follow-up)

Number of one-on-one interviews (face-to-face)

Number of enrollments in licensing school

Number of follow-up connections (post-interview)

Interview-to-hire percentage

Post-Interview pipeline-to-hire percentage

Licensing school drop-out percentage

Number of offers

Number of hires

Lost-to-competitor percentage

If you’re meeting benchmarks on these recruiting metrics, you’ll also be consistently gaining momentum in your recruiting process.  You’ll find it easier to stay on schedule, create a comfortable rhythm, recognize efficiencies, and successfully reach your goal. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Increasing the Quality of Your Recruiting Interactions

Last May I wrote a two-part series on “Recruiting Expertise.”  If you missed that series or need a refresher feel free to revisit that discussion.   Today, I’d like to focus not only on the concept of "Quality in Recruiting," but also show you a real example of how one manager is actually executing a quality driven recruiting strategy.

We recently welcomed CBSHOME, a Berkshire Hathaway Affiliate, on board as a client.  After rolling out our flagship product HiringCenter (new agent recruiting program), they subsequently rolled out the TalentPipeline (experienced agent software designed specifically for managers as they execute their own recruiting strategy).  It is from the TalentPipeline that I came across a perfect example of, what I consider to be, a quality driven recruiting strategy.

As anyone knows, who has been trained by me, I am a bit like Big Brother (Sister) in that I do check in to make sure things are firing on all cylinders or address any red flags, or in this case applaud excellent performance. Deda Myrhe, an Assistant Manager with CBSHOME is the recipient of my kudos.  With Deda’s and the company’s permission I would like to share four observations from Deda’s work.

Below is a snapshot of this candidate’s history from Deda’s TalentPipeline.

October 7, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  10/2/13- Called and invited her to meeting Tues. She is in class all week at Larabee finishing up, then has prep next weekend. She will schedule to test as soon as she is available after that.   September 19, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  9/17/13 - Communicated with Alex via email as she inquired about coming to meeting on Tuesday and setting up her desk space. I gave her the go ahead and encouraged her to start stopping in and forming some r elationships. She is extremely excited to get started.   September 5, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  9/5 - Did not start classes today as brother is getting married this weekend and lots of family stuff going on. Plans to be in class on Monday!   September 5, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  9/5 - Checked in to see how classes are going and offered to help in any way. Invited her to stop by the office again if possible.   August 30, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  8/29/13- Responded that she is so very excited to start attending classes! Has the schedule and plans to be at every one. Can't wait to become a realtor!   August 29, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  8/29/13-Sent her a note to check in and see how she is doing.   August 20, 2013 Note by Deda Myhre  6/30- Met with her and hit it off! She signed a letter of intent. Picked out a desk. 7/8 - Very excited to join us. Invited her to a meeting. Hopes to be able to take off some work to do that.

My Observations:

1. The Size of her Pipeline.  She has a manageable pipeline of 21 candidates.  This will likely ebb and flow in size as she adds people and/or hires/removes people from her pipeline.   What Deda did not do was dump a large database in the software, but has rather kept it reasonable such that she can build quality relationships with regular contact over time.
2. The Frequency of Contact.  Over a six week period of time Deda reached out to engage her candidate once every one or two weeks.
3. The Varied Methods of Contact.  Over those six weeks Deda spoke with her candidate over the phone, left voicemails, emailed and had face-to-face time.
4. High Content/Value of Interaction.  I should emphasize that this candidate is not yet licensed.  With that said, after the interview Deda invited her to pick out a desk, and invited her back 3 times to attend meetings and to come into the office to start feeling comfortable with the office culture.  Deda has also extended her knowledge to help her candidate through the schooling process.

So, Deda Myrhe, I applaud your efforts to stay in front of your candidates with the kind of authenticity that really does add value to this person’s dream of becoming a real estate agent.  

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. .

New Life, a Maternity Nurse, and Recruiting

By the time you read this WorkPuzzle, I'll be a grandfather for the first time.

I am writing this as my oldest son and daughter-in-law are in the delivery room. We are literally minutes (or maybe hours) away from the culmination of months of anticipation.

As you might have guessed, I’m very excited about this event, and I was anticipating this day for a long time—even before the pregnancy began. 

I have to repeat it to believe it...”I will be a Grandfather today.” A new light and life will change ours forever. What a blessing.

What has made this process more enjoyable and contributed to this great day is someone who is being paid to be here, but you'd never know it.

Who? The maternity nurse assigned to our grandson's birth. Her name is Bonnie.

Although I hadn't thought to ask Bonnie how many times she’s helped bring a new life into the world, she did mention she might have been my wife's nurse 24 years ago, when she gave birth to our youngest child! 

It just dawned on me--Bonnie has a miraculous perspective on her job. After more than 24 years of delivering babies, she is treating our family and this experience with a fresh sense of respect and her own sense of joy.  It’s been an incredible experience.

Bonnie has something to teach us all about recruiting.

The process of recruiting requires an enormous amount of calls, emails, and interviews to be successful. Maintaining a respectful and joyful attitude towards each and every contact makes the process work.

In essence, the best recruiters and hiring managers have an “anchor” of empathy that grounds every interaction with those in the recruiting process.  

Candidates are hoping for a new birth to their work lives.  Like Bonnie, you’re dealing with an equally delicate moment in their lives.  Each day, you have the opportunity to make it special, pleasant, peaceful, and full of hope.

On behalf of all those who you’ve already helped find what they do best…thank you.   You’re doing more meaningful work than you realize.

Editor's Note:  Jonas Mashburn was born at 11:30pm on Wednesday night.  He was welcomed into the world by a very happy grandpa and many other family members.

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Join the WorkPuzzle Discussion at the Tidemark Online Community (TMOC)

Engage in the WorkPuzzle discussion by joining the TMOC private social network.  Commenting on a public blog like WorkPuzzle can be a little intimidating, so why not join the discussion inside the privacy of the TMOC discussion group?  

By joining TMOC, you'll get to see who else is in the group and your comments will only be seen by those whom you trust.   Joining TMOC is quick, easy, and free (no kidding…this takes less than 2 minutes).   To get started, click here.

Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Are Your Job Ads Too Classified?

Did you know that 90% of the job ads posted today persist in describing the requirements of experience, skills, and education for each position as the only criteria? This would seem to be a logical system for attracting well-qualified candidates.

However, I am personally aware of several cases of individuals who have shied away from applying for those opportunities where the prerequisites are so selectively detailed. These were extremely talented candidates with many of the characteristics that would make them great employees in any field.

So why didn’t these candidates apply? Because, based on the ad content, they believed the company was more interested in experience and skill level than talent, drive and desire.

There are multiple layers behind why the “traditional” way doesn't work. You have probably heard me say that this method doesn't speak to the person. For example, “skills” do not tap a person’s curiosity, awareness or attentiveness or how they work in a group or leadership situation.

Finding more about who they are, what they are interested in, and how they view a beneficial working relationship will give you the relevant information needed to identify the successful employee. 

 Lou Adler, a widely read author in recruiting circles, recently wrote:

"Earlier this year, I saw an ad for Facebook’s VP of Human Resources. It listed a bunch of experience requirements interlaced with some generic responsibilities and hyperbole.

To me this is backwards. It’s far better to define the job before defining the person. If a person has successfully accomplished something similar, he or she has exactly the level of skills, experience and academics required.

The worked required to be done determines the skills needed, the skills needed don't define the work required.  80-90% of the people who get promoted internally into these same spots don’t have the experience, skills and academics listed as required for someone hired from the outside.

What they do have is something far better – a track record of performance that indicates they can take on a bigger role in the company.

It seems obvious that if a company wants to hire people who are both competent and motivated to do the work required, they need to start by defining the work required.

Yet somehow this basic concept is lost when a new job opens up. Instead of defining the job, managers focus on defining the person. The end result is not a job description at all, but a person description.

This limits the selection pool to a narrow group of people just like the people the company has hired in the past. By default, this precludes expanding the company’s diversity hiring program or raising the company’s overall talent level.

For The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired, I asked one of the top labor attorney’s in the country, David Goldstein from Littler Mendelson, to review the idea of using performance objectives to define the job, rather than skills. Here are a few of his comments (you’ll find his full report in the book):

 ‘A properly prepared performance profile ...and focusing on “Year 1 and Beyond” criteria may open the door to more minority, military, and disabled candidates who have a less “traditional” mix of experiences, thereby supporting affirmative action or diversity efforts.’

Hiring a more diverse and talented workforce starts by defining the work required for success, not the skills, experiences and academics needed to do the work.

This is not rocket science, just commonsense, but apparently commonsense is not one of the skills required for hiring people."

Lou’s article and book are extremely valuable tools in today’s competitive hiring environment. I am excited by the fact that most of our clients use this hiring method and apply the philosophy it evokes.

Perhaps it may be easier to practice these principles when it comes to independent contractors such as real estate agents, but it is also the right thing to do. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Cognitive Ease—The Secret to Great Interviewing—Part 2

Earlier this week, I suggested that most people show up to an interview experiencing “cognitive strain.”  Unless you can help a person migrate to a place of cognitive ease, they’ll have a difficult time hearing and engaging most of what you’re trying to communicate.  If you didn't read the first article in this discussion, you may want to catch up before trying to digest today’s topic.

How do you get someone from a state of cognitive strain to a place of cognitive ease?  Daniel Kahneman spends several chapters in his best-selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, addressing this topic.

Part of the answer to the question can be summed up in this diagram:

The items listed on the right side are the feelings we want the candidate to have when they leave the interview.  These traits are the natural results of feeling cognitive ease.

Some of the causes that produce cognitive ease are listed on the left side.  As you might suspect, if you can become proficient at influencing the items on the left (by the way, this is not a complete list—there are many more elements), candidates will start experiencing something remarkable at your interviews.

As I mentioned earlier, Kahneman spends several chapters explaining and citing research for these causes.  Not all of these would relate to interviewing (although a surprising number do apply), so we’ll just explore “related experience” today.  If you have an interest in learning more, you can delve into this topic by picking up a copy of his book.

Here is a simple question that Dr. Kahneman often asks his audiences:

“How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the ark?

The number of people who detect what was wrong with this question is so small that it has been dubbed the Moses illusion.  Moses took no animals into the ark; Noah did.

The idea of animals going into the ark sets up a biblical context, and Moses is not abnormal in that context.  You did not positively expect him, but the mention of his name is not surprising. It also helps that Moses and Noah have the same vowel sound and number of syllables.

As with triads that produce cognitive ease, you unconsciously detect associative coherence between Moses and ‘ark’ and so quickly accept the question.”

By default, the human mind wants to maintain (or get to) a state of System 1 thinking.  One of the ways it maintains this state is to look for related experiences.  When you heard just a few words (animals and ark), it quickly pulled a story from memory that allowed you to answer the question without leaving a state of cognitive ease.

The error you made (and we all make) illustrates how quickly the mind retrieves, depends upon, and desires related experiences. 

Let’s suppose I ask a different question:  How many chickens did Eric take to the marina? 

Of course, you quickly get frozen with this question.  Who’s Eric?  Why does he have chickens?  Is he taking the chickens to a boat, or is there a restaurant near the marina? And, so on.   Your mind does not even consider the first part of the question—how many chickens are there?   

In the first question, none of the background mattered because the “related experience” filled in the context.

Side note:  The relationship between related experience and cognitive ease is leveraged frequently by companies such as Geico during their marketing campaigns.  Next time you see or hear a Geico commercial, see if you can detect it.

What does this have to do with interviewing?

A “related experience” is one of the best pathways to get a candidate to a state of cognitive ease during an interview.

The point is not to deceive anyone in the interview process (we make the assumption that you’re offering the person something that will be advantageous for his or her career), but instead allow them to feel good about you and your organization and trust the things you’re communicating.

How do you find related experiences?  Here are two sources you can use immediately:

Pop culture.  How many times have you been in a meeting and someone says…"this is like the TV show Survivor.  Someone is going to get voted off the island."  This is a related experience.  Find two or three references in pop culture that would relate to the points you commonly make during and interview.

The candidate’s own experiences.  If you spend time (the first 20 to 30 minutes of the interview) drawing out and listening to the candidate’s story, you’ll have plenty of material to draw upon to find related experiences.  Restating the candidate’s own experiences and then relating it to the realities of working in your office is very powerful.

If you can master the concepts of related experience and cognitive ease, you will take your interview skills to a whole new level.   You’ll not only reap the rewards of hiring more agents, but you’ll also experience some cognitive ease for yourself!

 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Cognitive Ease: The Secret to Great Interviewing

Think of yourself sitting in a canoe in a swift flowing river.  You’re paddling desperately with the intention of making it 100 yards upstream. 

To get there, you’ll need to focus on the task, apply some paddling skill, and consistently exert yourself.   Because you’ll be fighting against the current, you’ll experience some frustration and probably arrive out of breath and needing to rest.

In a figurative sense, this is how most people feel when they go to an interview.  The fast-flowing current is called “cognitive strain,” and it’s a silent factor that works against you in every interview.

In the next couple of WorkPuzzles, we’ll teach you how to alleviate cognitive strain and start conducting your interviews in the calm water of “cognitive ease.”

A few weeks ago, I introduced you to Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winning psychologist who recently published his best selling manifesto called Thinking, Fast and Slow.

If you didn’t catch the previous discussions on this topic, I’d recommend reading the first blog in this series.  It will give you some background for today’s WorkPuzzle.

In his book, Kahneman introduces his readers to the concept of “cognitive ease.”  In simple terms, it is the natural desire a person has to make decisions and judgments using “System 1” thinking.

As you may remember, System 1 is the fast, intuitive, and automatic way of making decisions and judgments.   System 2 is the slower way of thinking that requires more conscious judgments and critical analysis.

Dr. Kahneman defines cognitive ease in this way:

“Whenever you are conscious, and perhaps even when you are not, multiple computations are going on in your brain, which maintain and update current answers to some key questions:

Is anything new going on? Is there a threat? Are things going well? Should my attention be redirected? Is more effort needed for this task?

You can think of a cockpit, with a set of dials that indicate the current values of each of these essential variables. The assessments are carried out automatically by System 1 and one of their functions is to determine whether extra effort is required from System 2.

One of the dials measures cognitive ease, and its range is between “easy” and “strained.” 

Easy is a sign that things are going well—no threats, no major news, no need to redirect attention or mobilize effort. 

Strained indicates that a problem exists, which will require increased mobilization of System 2.

When you are in a state of cognitive ease, you are probably in a good mood, like what you see, believe what you hear, trust your intuitions, and feel that the current situation is comfortably familiar. 

When you feel cognitive strain, you are more likely to be more vigilant and suspicious, invest more effort in what you are doing, feel less comfortable, and make few errors, but you also are less intuitive and less creative than usual.”

With these definitions as a background, would you rather have someone be experiencing “cognitive ease” or “cognitive strain” during an interview?

Obviously, you’d want the person to be experiencing cognitive ease.  If candidates are suspicious, uncomfortable, and lacking the creativity to imagine themselves in a new career, your interviews are not going to come to life.  It's very difficult to build a relationship with individuals who remain in this state.

Here’s something you may not have considered:  Every candidate you interview (especially if the person is a “new to real estate” candidate) is experiencing cognitive strain when they arrive at your office.

There are very few exceptions to this rule.  Interviews are stressful.  Being in a new environment, meeting new people, receiving a bunch of new information, and having the perception you’re being evaluated puts people squarely in System 2 thinking. 

One of the secrets of successful interviewing is helping a person migrate from a state of cognitive strain to a place of cognitive ease during the 45 minutes you spend with the candidate. If the candidate remains in a state of cognitive strain (and most people do), the person will not have the ability to truly hear and engage most of what you’re trying to communicate.

How do you do this?  Daniel Kahneman has some great insight on this topic based on the research that he and others of have done.  It’s fascinating stuff, and we’ll cover it during our next WorkPuzzle discussion.  

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

Learning to Recruit on the White River

A few weeks ago, Ben and I had a trip planned to see a client in southern Missouri.  Since we were in the vicinity, we decided to tack on an extra day and fish the, always amazing, White River in Northern Arkansas.

We were joined by my father, my brother-in-law, my brother, and his son. The day began in a section of the river where everyone usually pursues their fishing, within a short distance of where boats can be launched and rented.

In this section of river, one can utilize just about any type of bait or tackle, and anglers are allowed to keep their limit of fish. In this section of river, where everyone fishes everyday, we did OK. Nothing to write home about, but OK.

After about a half-hour in this section of the river, my Dad (who will turn 80 on his next birthday), turned to us and said, "Pull in your rods boys.  We're moving".

My father knows this river well enough to know that we had seen nothing yet. He turned the boat upstream and opened up the throttle taking us two miles up river.  The destination was a one-mile stretch of river that was different from the downstream portion of the river.

Why? What was different about this section of river?

First and most importantly, it is a designated "catch-and-release" section. If you are unfamiliar with this term, catch-and-release means exactly what is says: You cannot keep any fish. Now, catch and release is common in Seattle, but in the Ozark's, folks go fishing for sustenance, not necessarily solely for sport.

Secondly, it requires us to use modified lures that make catching fish less injurious to the fish and theoretically more difficult to catch fish.
 
Four hours later, the six of us had caught and released 169 beautiful trout, primarily rainbows. Catching these trout was not as easy as it may sound. We spent some time figuring out what they were going to pursue.   Once we broke that code, my brother-in-law (with his tackle box that resembles a magicians hat) pulled out some red paint and modified other lures to resemble what they were attracted to.
 
In the real estate industry, there are a few well-known ways to recruit. In these popular venues, your company is forced to compete for the same agents as everyone else.

One of the ways to remain ahead of your competitors is to find new ways to fish.  This often means fishing where no one else thinks of fishing.

It’s no secret that HiringCenter was designed to provide “access” to the section of the river where no one else is fishing.  Working this section takes more time, innovation, and discipline than remaining in the areas where everyone else fishes.   It also requires “cracking the code” of what attracts and engages these candidates.

The payoff is a steady flow of productive agents who would have never been found downstream.

As many of you know, this is not a solo effort.  We’ve enjoyed the help and partnership of many great companies and recruiting leaders who have helped us “paint the lures” that attract the fish and learn new techniques to engage the next generation of real estate agents.  Thank you for being such great fishing partners! 

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. 

What You Really Need to Know About Hiring and Retaining Millennials

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to present to a group of recruiting leaders who were gathered in Chicago for the Realty Alliance conference.  Several of the attendees oversee very high-performing recruiting organizations, so there was much to share and learn.

One of the topics we addressed was the recruitment and retention of agents from the “millennial” age group.  This group is generally considered those in the workforce who are currently 18 to 32 years old.

We are starting to hear more chatter on this topic as real estate companies strive to hire agents who, from an age perspective, are more reflective of the population at large.  I recently read that by 2014, millennials will account for 36% of the American workforce and will make up 75% of the global workplace in 2025.

So, what is the secret to hiring agents in this age group?

It’s not as complicated as some human resources pundits would have you believe.  For example, I recently read an article in the Washington Post outlining the “ten things millennials want from the workplace.”  Here are my five favorites from the list:

1.  Not money (ie. It’s not about the money)

2.  Goofy perks (like scooters to get around the halls of the office)

3.  A focus on social responsibility (apparently, older generations do not care about social causes…)

4.  A focus on social justice and community service (not sure how these are different from social responsibility)

5.  A “pass” on doing stupid things in their personal life (and then posting it on Facebook).

Maybe the authors just surveyed the Occupy WallStreet crowd to get the data for their article, but it seems surreal to me.  We have millennials working for our company, I have two kids who are millennials, Dave has three kids who are millennials, and none of them focus on these issues.

I believe it’s safe to assume that if you tried to implement such advice, you’d quickly twist your organization into a pretzel of dysfunction.  Unfortunately, greater than 90% of the articles I’ve read on millennial hiring over the last couple of years attempt to highlight the surface (and often silly) differences between younger and older generations.

Here’s a better idea.  Why not focus on what we know to be true about all human beings and draw out the similarities between generations?  Also, it is better to focus on core issues that drive human behavior and engagement.

A good place to start on collecting this information would be the Gallup Organization’s classic Q12 research.  Gallup has been working on measuring employee engagement in organizations for more than 30 years.  While they did not specifically focus on generational differences in this study, there is a surprising similarity among outcomes across age groups during this 30-year period.  You can download a meta-analysis of this research if you care to read more.

Some media outlets are finally starting to pick up on these similarities that connect back to more reliable research.  For example, FoxBusiness recently published an article citing a recent “What Millennials Want From Their Employers” survey.   This survey found that millennials want:

1.  To do meaningful work and be part of companies doing meaningful work.

2.  A career that has a believable and viable future.

3.  A mentor—someone to show them how to be productive and do their best work.

4.  Community—they want some of their coworkers to also be their friends.

Do these ideas resonate with what you want from your work environment? I bet they do.  Why?   Because they are among the basic things most humans want from their work.  

As you might suspect, all four of these themes are strongly demonstrated in Gallup’s Q12 research, which was originally collected from mostly baby-boomers and some generation X data sets.

The most important workplace engagement themes ring true across generations. 

Focus on these similarities, and you’ll be much further ahead.  Ignore the articles that highlight superficial generational differences.  They may be fun to read, but they won’t help you hire more successfully or coach more effectively. 

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Already of a member of TMOC?  If so, join the WorkPuzzle Dialog Group by clicking on the WorkPuzzle Group icon on the left side of your TMOC homepage.  Questions?   Email the WorkPuzzle editor (workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net) and we'll walk through the process.

 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.