Recruiting the right people

In their third diary chapter, Choice Practice Development Manager, Chris Vellios, shares his tips for recruiting the right people

Recruiting the right people

In a fortnightly diary series, Choice’s broker support team take us through the everyday ways they help brokers build successful businesses. This week, Choice Practice Development Manager for Victoria, Chris Vellios, shares his tips for recruiting the right people.

Helping broking businesses to recruit and retain the right people is a key supporting function of an aggregator Partnership Manager. At Choice we are regularly approached to help broker businesses to recruit loan writers and administrative staff and have identified some critical success factors for both recruiting and developing new team members.

Determine the right fit

There are many professional loan writers in the market but recruiting is not as simple as picking out the person with the best CV. If the person doesn’t have the right personality to fit in with you and your team, the results may not be as you expected.

Before starting the interview process, consider making a list of qualities that you think would make someone successful within your business, as well as identifying any skills gaps. This will help you to be much more targeted in your recruitment approach.

Think about your employer brand

High employee turnover costs businesses time and productivity, so you need to put in the time and effort to make your business an attractive place to work. Communicate your business’ mission so everyone is on the same page; set out how you foster employee development and think about additional benefits you could offer to fit your employees’ needs, for example, telecommuting or flexitime.

Look outside the industry

Businesses naturally want to recruit experienced operators but the reality is there is a lot of competition for these people. As such, we are increasingly seeing broking businesses recruiting people from outside the industry.

People coming from a banking environment, for example, have often been trained in all aspects of sales and can usually bring great customer service, organisational and communication skills to the table.

We have also seen a lot of financial planners and accountants successfully bolt on broking as an additional service to their clients. People from these professions often have a head start on anyone else as they already have most of the client’s financial information to hand.

Seek help from your aggregator
A national aggregator like Choice can assist in the recruitment process by conducting a state-wide or even national search for the right candidate.

At Choice we can also be part of the interview process, so we don’t just pass on a name and number. We consider our members to be partners, and they really appreciate this value-add.

Chris Vellios is a Practice Development Manager for Victoria with Choice. This article is part of a series featuring Choice Aggregation's broker support team focusing on how they help their brokers overcome common challenges. Find out more http://www.choiceaggregationservices.com.au/success.

Previous diary chapters:
Getting the most out of peer-to-peer learning
Ella Moradi on tips for tackling marketing