If you are a Tidemark client and user of HiringCenter, you've experienced the occasional interview that can't end fast enough. The candidate who is scheduled for an hour of your valuable time and then turns out to be a dud.
During a recent checkup meeting with some of our newer clients at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Georgia, a manager shared a disturbing (but funny) story about one of her first candidate interviews.
The candidate showed up "high on something," sweating profusely, bragging that she was "in the sexual prime" of her life, and asked if she could have "some of your candies," only to sweep the entire platter into her large purse. At this point in the interview the dazed manager began looking around her office attempting to locate the hidden cameras, certain that Alan Funt would spring out at anytime.
After hearing this brief narrative, I think many of us considered such an interview to be a waste of time and had some real doubts about the success of recruiting in general.
However, CEO Dan Foresman stood up and said, "Recruiting is like shrimp fishing." Over the next several minutes he had us all captivated by his incredible expertise when it comes to shrimp fishing, and also its relationship to this type of "early in the pipeline" recruiting.
My recollection of Dan's tale was as follows. Dan was once a captain of a shrimp boat. In the winter shrimp fishing is basically throwing down the nets and hauling them in predominantly with shrimp. This is because shrimp don't mind cold water, whereas catfish and crab don't like it. Bringing up only shrimp in your nets is a great feeling and is similar to experienced agent and new licensee recruiting: you know what you have in the net.
When using services such as HiringCenter for recruiting you don't know exactly what you're going to get. This is more like summer shrimp fishing. As Dan explains it: "When that net comes up… It's not full of just great shrimp. Oh no! It comes up with mostly everything else you can imagine. You sort through catfish, crab, trash and everything else you can imagine. In fact, the crab bite your ankles, the catfish sting your hand, the trash smells, but it must be done to get to the shrimp."
Although that sounds like a lot of unpleasant work at times, the shrimp fisherman chooses to fish for both the winter and summer season. The fisherman realizes that he has made an investment in his boat, nets, crew, etc. so the more shrimp the more success.
The analogy is painfully clear. Nothing worth acquiring is obtained without a screening or selection process. Whether its gold, silver, diamonds, shrimp or agents, you have to be able to sort through the whole to find what you really want.
Back to recruiting: Dan and most of our clients tell us that even when they are "winter" recruiting for experienced agents, the conversion rate is 20% or 1 in 5. With new-to-Real Estate- HiringCenter recruiting our clients average 20-25% on conversion from interview to hire. So what actually might feel like summer shrimp fishing, where there might be a few crab and catfish, in the end the odds of landing shrimp who stay on your boat is really no different.
The bottom line is someone has invested in the boat, the license to fish, the nets, the fuel and the sonar equipment. With HiringCenter, the captains have even invested in deck hands further up stream to sort through much of the debris before you even see the net.
This sorting is done by Tidemark and your own Recruiting Coordinator. What they want you, as a manager, to understand is that sorting through a few "catfish and crab" is time consuming but ultimately successful.
To increase the hires in every season is a reasonable outcome for their investment. Do you have 2 or 3 hours a month to do that sorting?
We realize that some managers in certain seasons will get more catfish than shrimp, but as long as the net gain of excellent candidates are coming in the door somewhere, it should give us all hope for our own "big catch."
By the end of our time with BHHS Georgia, and Dan's great analogy, every one of their excellent group of managers understood this message. They also understood that after all, "summer shrimp fishing" is what they ask their agents to do every day of the year.
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.
