Real Estate Forum - October 2015

ingly turning to a candidate or two who might not be an exact fit with the job description yet has the right skills or expertise.

“We recently did a search for VP of asset management at a private equity firm,” reveals Elliott. “There were several qualifications, including having an MBA. We brought in six candidates that had everything and one more that didn’t have the degree. The client wanted the non-MBA. We have to present the sure things and then a plus one.” Industry firms are deploying new measures to find talent. Take for example two-year-old RealtyMogul.com. When the company was looking to staff up, it started an employee incentive program in the first quarter of this year whereby staff members could receive a bonus if they referred people to the company and those referrals turned into new hires. As a result, 10 to 15 employees of the 91-person company are friends of friends or other referrals, CEO Jilliene Helman tells Real Estate Forum. Overall, RealtyMogul.com has hired close to 60 employees over the past 12 months.

The program works well for several rea-
sons, she says. “When you hire A-players,
they want to work with other A-players so
they think about the top two or three peo-
ple they know. Plus, the cost is nowhere
near the price of a recruiter and it’s effi-
cient because it’s a lot easier to get through
the hiring process; these are people who
come highly recommended.”
At Transwestern, a longstanding com-
mitment to public service—which includes
giving employees time off to work with their
cause of choice—has served as a strong
marketing tool for prospective recruits, says
Colleen Dolan, EVP of human resources.
“It’s always part of the recruiting discussion.

When I’m on college campuses and we’re speaking to groups, this is something we highlight because we’re finding that the younger generation has grown up with giving back to the community so it resonates with them.” (For much more on how to entice and retain the elusive Millennial generation, see sidebar on the next page.)

But of course, money talks, so companies are matching and even exceeding compensation expectations, says Tony LoPinto, global sector leader, real estate and managing director, New York regional office of recruiting giant Korn Ferry.

“A public firm recently was about to hire a
very senior level executive and it became
known to another firm that he was looking
for a new position,” he reveals. “That second
firm offered him three times the compensa-
tion the public company was offering.”
More generally, LoPinto continues,
“Companies are being much more aggres-
sive in terms of compensation and we’re
seeing ‘bid backs,’ where companies are
trying to get people who’ve been offered a
job elsewhere to stay so they ‘bid back’ the
employee. The bid backs have offered more
significant compensation and much more
equity. We’re seeing very bright up and
coming talent get strong counter offers.”
Adds Elliott, “If workers are happy, the
new employer has to make a compelling
offer to pull them over. Compensation
now has to be 20% to 30% higher than the
current salary.” The salary increase needed
to lure talent “from 2011 through the end
of last year was 10% to 20%.”
Then again, jobs aren’t just about
money. “It’s also about where the job is
located compared to where someone lives,
the opportunity for advancement, and the
company’s reputation,” notes Elliott.

“Money has never been the number-one
motivator for people to move,” declares
Jane Lyons, managing partner, Rhodes
Associates. “People become unhappy when
they’re unchallenged or they don’t have a
boss who cares about their career develop-
ment. So it behooves senior management
to take a hard look at retention.”
One effective step taken by some compa-
nies, she observes, is having people change
jobs—or at least, altering an existing posi-
tion. “There’ve been cases of, ‘We’re going
to take you from asset management and
put you in acquisitions,’ or the age old one
is, ‘Go do two years in London.’ You stimu-
late your top employees that way.”
At Transwestern, Dolan and her team
closely monitor “Best Places to Work” sur-
veys—in which they participate and then
pay for the data—to find out if there’s any-
thing the company can do better. “It’s defi-
nitely a factor in people being interested in
working for a company where they see that
people are treated well.”
But it’s also important for keeping the
existing team happy and engaged. “We had
some particularly thought-provoking feed-
back that our accounting group didn’t feel
integrated. So we started having brown bag
lunches with those teams to make sure that
they’re heard. Competition for really good
talent is very severe so we can’t rest on our
laurels. We need to think of alternatives
that would be interesting to people and are
beneficial to the company in the long run.”
Areas of interest in today’s market run the
gamut. “Some disciplines are particularly
hot and in demand,” asserts Matt Slepin,
founder and managing partner, Terra
Search Partners. “Construction and develop-
ment has come roaring back in some areas.
Also, we’re doing more searches for asset
managers, those positions are more in
demand as the cycle gets more mature.”
Adds Manish Srivastava, director of aca-
demic affairs and clinical associate profes-
sor at NYU’s Schack Institute of Real
Estate, “Over the past six months, senior
level hiring has increased. We’re seeing
recruiting for VPs, senior associates and
directors. There’s an expansion of jobs in
development, finance—particularly in
CMBS—and asset management solutions.”
He continues, “I’ve seen internships at
We Work and other, newer kinds of firms that
want real estate solutions. They’re hiring
people away from established investment
funds and are probably making the deals
very attractive for people to come over.”
There are other new types of positions
too, notes Lyons. “There’s a diversity of
platforms now. We didn’t have specialty