6 Top Tips When Hiring Staff for Your Rental Property Management Business

Hiring a new employee can feel like a first date: everyone's nervous and trying to make a good first impression, and no one really knows what the future holds. You can't always hire the perfect person, and as Forbes notes, employee recruitment is about managing stress, as you can't please everybody in your organization. How can you make sure that you make the right hiring decisions to support your single family business?

Be Clear With Your Expectations

Before you send out an employment advertisement and begin the hiring process, be sure you have a strong and thorough job description and posting for your candidate. This posting should include compensation and required skills. Maintain a list of the behavioral characteristics you would like to see in your new hire and the training you'll provide.

Look For Skills

If there are specific skills you need the prospective employee to bring, be clear about this in the job description. For example, your rental property management company may need someone with a high degree of computer literacy to manage the software behind your property management systems. Of course, it's possible to learn skills on the job but make sure your future employee has relevant experience and can demonstrate proficiency in key areas.

Choose Staff With Strong Analytical and Decision-Making Skills

How will your new employee respond in high-pressure situations? Whether it's proactively planning for repairs or determining what to do in a crisis with a tenant, your staff need to be able to make wise, quick decisions that will keep your rental property management company and tenants happy. Talk with references and ask questions that test your prospective employee's ability to make these decisions in the moment.

How is Your Employee's Customer Service Demeanor?

In the rental property management industry, many of your employees will work directly with tenants or contractors every day. Your workforce needs to have an ability to articulate matters in a clear and positive manner, even when interacting with an argumentative tenant or difficult contractor. If you're choosing between a candidate with a specific, small technical skill and another who offers great customer service, hiring the second will save you more in the long run than training will cost you in the short term.

Choose Loyalty

The hiring process can be tiring and expensive, and you want to make sure your employee stays around. Look at a candidate's work history to see if they often switch jobs. Assess what he or she is committed to and consider if your business is a good match. If a prospective employee needs to have opportunities for quick growth or wishes to make a lot of decisions about their position, determine whether your organization can accommodate this. Hire for fit, but hire for longevity as well.

Talk About Culture

An online posting only tells part of your company's story. Office culture is very important, and one of the most challenging conversations to have is about those unspoken workplace expectations. Forbes says that sometimes you'll need to set an employee straight about the cultural norms and expectations of the office. Instead of doing this after you've hired, be as candid as possible during your initial meetings and choose an employee whose work background and personality fit with your office culture.

As your company grows, you need the support of excellent staff and exceptional software products. At PropertyWare, we're here to support your rental property management business. Sign up for a free tour of PropertyWare today.