It’s not an exaggeration to say that hiring the right agents and support staff can make or break the success of your real estate team. Get it wrong and it’ll cost you in time, money and maybe even relationships. In this week’s episode of The Walkthrough, Aaron West walks us through the rigorous interview process that has helped his team grow into a top-producing team in Modesto, California, and inclusion in the HomeLight Elite program. If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube (SPEAKER: Matt McGee, Host) If you hire the wrong person for your team or brokerage, it can take months to recover, maybe even longer. It’ll cost you money and time for sure, and it might even cost you relationships. Ask anyone who’s run a team or brokerage and they’ll tell you you need a system in place to attract, screen and hire the right people, whether it’s agents or support staff. Think about your hiring system for a moment. How many interviews do you do with a candidate, one or two? Do you call their references, and then ask those references for more references? Today, we take a deep dive into a rigorous interview process. It involves five conversations with the candidate, at least two levels of checking references, personality testing, and a lot more. And it works for a super successful real estate team in California. This is “The Walkthrough.” (INTRO MUSIC) Hey, everyone, I’m Matt McGee, editor of HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center and your host every week right here on “The Walkthrough.” On this show, you’ll learn what’s working right now from the best real estate agents and industry experts in the country. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. That’s why we created “The Walkthrough.” We’re on a journey to find out how great real estate agents grow their business, stand out from the crowd, and become irreplaceable. We have two ways that you can contribute to the show. You can leave a message for me at 415-322-3328. That’s 415-322-3328. You can also send an email to walkthrough [at] homelight.com. I do read and hear all the messages that come in. Maybe I’ll share your comments on an upcoming show. There are a lot of hiring philosophies you could use on your team or at your brokerage. You’ve probably heard some of these. But hiring the right people is about a lot more than words or philosophy. It’s about having a plan, a system, and executing on it. Aaron West knows this all too well. He’s the team leader for The West Experience Real Estate Group in Modesto, California. He’s also a Homelight Elite agent, which is a program reserved for the top 1% of agents on our platform. Aaron formed his team 12 years ago. He’s purposely kept it small over the years. He and I had our first conversation, I think it was late last year. And I remember Aaron saying that he could have like 15 agents on his team if he wanted, but he preferred having a slightly more tight-knit group. Well, today, The West Experience has five agents, three admins, and a virtual assistant. And they are crushing it — as evidenced by their inclusion in the HomeLight Elite program. When Aaron adds new people, whether it be agents or admins, he relies heavily on the Keller Williams hiring system called Career Visioning. It’s a system that KW teaches around the country, and it’s open even to non-Keller agents like Aaron and his team. Aaron says he’s made his share of hiring mistakes over the years — probably very relatable, right? But he has a thorough process in place now that helps him avoid making bad hires. And it begins with a really rigorous interview system. On today’s show, Aaron’s gonna walk us through those five interviews, the purpose of each one, the things they discuss, and so forth. He also explains how and why all of his new hires over the years have come from personal referrals. And don’t miss Aaron’s response when I ask him why he takes hiring so seriously. He has some interesting data about the economic price of making a bad hire. So, without further ado, here is my conversation with Aaron West about how to get the hiring process right every time. (BEGIN CONVERSATION) Aaron: We’re always…you know, I’m always looking for talent, but I’m very, very discerning about who we bring on the team. So I’ll have, you know, a couple or three conversations a month with different agents or different people who are thinking about getting into real estate to just gauge what their talent level is and if I think they’ll be a good fit for the team. Primarily, at this point, most of the interaction, until we get to the very later stages of it is all with me. Matt: Okay, so, it begins with you and then, do they have like one on ones or is there like a group kind of…a group interview with…? Aaron: So what we typically do is it usually takes between two weeks and a month for us to even decide if the person is the right fit. And we do that for a couple of reasons. One, is we really wanna deep dive into who they are, what their mindset is, what their goals are, what their hunger level is, and then just if they would be a good fit for the team. Because we wanna make sure that whoever comes in is a fit for the team as well. So it initially starts out…we’ll do a personality profile, which, you know, is super easy to do, we just send them to Tony Robbins website, and he has a DISC profile that he has. So, we’ll do that so that we kind of get a feel for them. And then there’s another assessment that we do that takes a little bit longer, that just goes much more in-depth into their skillsets when it comes to business. So are they a people person? Are they a numbers person? You know, what are their challenges? How quickly do they assimilate information? How assertive are they? And that is just a really good place for us to be able to start the conversation with them. So, before we really even have any conversation, they’ve done both of these things. And the first interview is really just inviting them to come in, to go over those assessments with them. And what that does is it allows me to have a conversation with them, see what their level of interest is, and then also get a feel for, are the assessments in line with who they project themselves to be. So once we have those things, the first interview is really about an hour long, and it really is just going over the assessment with them, just line by line, part by part and just asking if they feel that that is a right fit for who they are. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you say that this sentence is about you, about how you communicate, what kind of team player you are, you know, how assertive you are, all of these different things. And then at the end of that, we’ll chat a little bit. If they’re not a good fit for me, I just ask them if they have any questions about real estate or have any questions about the team, tell them that we’re, you know, constantly looking for talent and that we would…you know, we’ll definitely stay in touch if we have any openings because technically, we don’t have any openings right now. Matt: And then, as you continue this process, so they… If somebody passes the first round of interviews, and things are looking good, and then they continue talking, like, what kind of questions are you asking to figure out if they are going to be a good fit, and as you said, fill the position that you are looking for? Aaron: Well, you know, the second interview is much more along the lines of what a typical interview looks like. So, the second one is…and sometimes I’ll do it right after the first one and it’ll be like a two-hour interview. And then sometimes I’ll bring them back just depending on, you know, how they’re responding, how we’re jelling, all those kinds of things. And, you know, the second one is just asking questions that again, you would hear on almost…in any interview. How are you at overcoming challenges? Give me an example of the last challenge that you’ve overcome. How are you dealing with…? Have you ever run into someone who’s a know-it-all? How do you deal with those people? Tell me about your last boss. You know, all of the questions that you’re just trying to get a little bit better feel for who they are. And in that interview, is really where you kinda take the information that you got from the personality assessment, and now you’re just kind of honing that interview to see, you know, if they talk bad about their last team that they were on or if they talk bad about their manager. If they talk bad about someone, you know, that’s just information that you continue to do… So at any one of our interview processes, if they don’t fit or we don’t feel that they’re ready to go to the next step, we just thank them for their time and we move on, and hopefully have brought value and added value to them. But I do very little talking in the interviews, just because I wanna gather as much information as we can from them. So the first interview is all about their personality and working style. The second interview is really what you would see if someone were to bring in a resume. And most agents or bosses would have just more of a traditional interview. Matt: So if they pass then the second interview, then does the rest of the team get involved, or am I jumping the gun? Aaron: You’re jumping the gun. So, after the second interview, at that point, we’ll ask them for references. And so they’ll give us their work references and their personal references. We call all of those people. And then there’s a script that we use. And we actually got, you know, a lot of this from — Keller Williams has a really great hiring system, and so we use a lot of that. And there are some things that we’ve done. But we’ll ask all of… We’ll actually call the references which most…people don’t ever call the references. So a lot of people are surprised when we call. And then we always ask for another reference that can speak to us, from that one, about the person that we’re considering hiring. And we’ll try and go two or three deep on both of them. And what that does is it kind of gets past their sister-in-law and their best friend and, you know, the friend of theirs that they still work with, that they go out to beer with all the time that are all going to say really good things about them. So with the second level of people that we talk to, we’re able to, you know, ask the same questions, but we typically get different responses than we get from the first layer of people. Matt: So I love that you do that second level of deeper dive with the references. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. And you’re so right that it does…you know, I’m gonna give you… Here’s three references that you should call, Aaron, and these are three that I know are gonna say great things about me. And it may not be, you know, completely, you know, the full picture. That’s the point, right? Aaron: Yeah. And we’ll get pushback every once in a while with people like, “Well, I don’t really know anybody.” And our dialogue is just really simple. It’s like, you know, part of our hiring process is that we have to talk to a certain number of people who have a relationship with this person. And so, they’re only allowed to give us so many. So, you know, if you really care about them and want them to move forward in this position, we really need a couple of more names of people that we can talk to. So if you can think of another person or a couple of people, you know, and get those to us, that’s really going to help your friend out or, you know, Joe Blow out in them being able to get this position. Matt: I sure love that. Aaron: And then ultimately, we get, you know, we’ll get a name or two names or whatever. And then we’re able to go you know a little bit deeper and find out more information about the person that we’re considering hiring. Matt: Now, let’s say the potential hiree passes all this, you’ve done the second level of reference checks, what happens after that? Aaron: So then we go to the third interview. So, and at this point…and one of the things that I really like about this system that we use is that, at this point, they appreciate that we’re hiring for the position instead of filling a need. Because if you’re filling a need and you’re just like, “I want agents or I want to admin and I need them, and my person has left and I’m up a creek.” It’s a very cursory conversation that you have with them. It’s like, “Hey, can you do the job?” Yes, you can, you’re hired. And so by stretching this out, and by taking these steps, what happens is is the person becomes vested in your business because they understand that you’re giving it the weight that really all hires should have. So, the third interview is really just an interview where we kind of deep dive into their life. It’s not…it is business, but we kind of start at high school and we say, you know, we’re gonna go through and we’re gonna try and find some reoccurring themes or some things that you’ve learned about. And it’s an hour-long conversation of like, when did you have your first job? What was your first job? What was your boss like? What did you learn from from working here? What was the worst thing about working here? What was the best thing about working here? Great. And then you go down to the next one, and you go to the next one. And you really just…instead of having like the last two years of resume, you get their whole life of what it looks like. And was there anything else that happened, you know, in this time period of college that was important to you or that was something that impacted you for the rest of your life. So you really get a chance to see what their hiring history looks like, where they found value from the management that they worked under, and what kind of manager they worked best under, what they hated about a job, what they loved about a job. And it’s done in a way that is…it’s them just talking about themselves. Matt: So I’m listening to this and I’m getting nervous because if anybody… If I was interviewing for a job, Aaron, and somebody sat down and said, we’re gonna go back to high school and start talking to you about, you know, the jobs you’ve had and the decisions you’ve made and all that sort of stuff, I’m not sure I would pass the interview. You know, I mean, we’ve all done stupid things when you’re younger. Aaron: I mean, we’re all human, we’re all human. And at this point, you’ve already spent two hours with them and you’ve already done a background check on them. So they know that you’re doing this from a good place. It’s not like, “Hey, I’m here to grill you about the rest of your life…about what your life has looked like.” It’s like, “Hey, we wanna learn who it is that we’re working with. And we wanna be able to coach you. We wanna be able to help you reach the goals that you wanna achieve.” And one of the ways that we do this is, you know, we talk about your past history. Because your favorite job…if we’re able to do what you enjoyed in your favorite job, and we’re able to help you do that, you’re going to enjoy working here a lot more. And if there’s something that you don’t like doing, we wanna know that too, because I don’t wanna make that your primary job if you hated it the whole time that you did it. And so it’s it comes from a really good place. So it’s coming from a place of you’re just inquiring about them. It’s just honest. I’m kind of blanking on the word right now, but you’re just trying to find out more about who they are. And I’ll tell you this, I mean, every person that we’ve hired using this system, at the end of it said, “Man, I felt like I was getting hired by the CIA, because of everything.” But it also allows you to…you know, this whole process is, again, you’re just giving the weight that you need to give weight to. I mean, this is someone that you’re adding to your family. This is someone you’re adding to your business. This is someone who’s gonna be working with all of the people that you’ve been working with for three or four or five years or whatever that looks like. You wanna make sure that they’re going to be a good fit. And if you do…when you do get through this whole process and actually offer a position to this person, they know that they’ve been vetted, and they’ve been found…that they’re not wanting, they are a winner, basically. Because if you’re gonna spend this much time to hire, by the time that you offer them the position, they’re like, all in. Because who wouldn’t wanna work for a company that you had to jump through the hoops to be able to get the job? It’s like going to work for Google, you know, you can try to work for Google or Apple for years, and when you finally get that position, everybody does backflips, right? Because they know it’s a good job. And they vet people so well, and for so long, that by the time you get offered the position, you’re all in because you earn the position. It wasn’t just something like… Google doesn’t go, “Hey, we need a new designer, you know, boom, we’re gonna hire someone.” They’ve got a whole list of people to pull from. And so when they reach out to somebody, those people are very vested in that job, in that position, and want to be successful in that position, because they understand that it’s not just handed out. Matt: Are you looking for the candidate to also be asking you the right kind of questions at this point in the process, and during the whole process? Aaron: During the whole process we’re constantly stopping and saying, “Do you have any questions for me? Do you have any concerns or questions?” through the whole process. And then a lot of times depending on where we are in it, it may be something that I’ll take all the questions and say, “You know what, I wanna make sure that I’m prepared to answer these questions for you. So why don’t we address these questions in our next interview?” Or depending on what it looks like, it’s their compensation or, you know, the other questions. But the reality is that most of the time by the time you get to the second or third interview, there are no compensation questions at all. Because it’s all about, do you qualify for this position? Are you a good fit for this team? The money we’ll talk about if you’re a good fit. If you’re not a good fit then having a conversation about money is a moot point, or what the split is, or any of those other things. Because if we can’t help you achieve your goals, then we’re not a good fit for each other. And it doesn’t matter how much or how little we pay you, if we can’t help you achieve your goals, it doesn’t make any difference. So a lot of the conversation, as we get more towards the end of it, is all about their goals. So that’s the third interview is, you know, really going through their whole life. And what I’ll do is I’ll actually take a whiteboard, and I’ll write everything down in front of them as we go through the process, and just kind of go line by line by line. So high school, what was high school 2002 to 2012, or, you know, 2004 whatever it is. You know, your first job was? And then I’ll write it and I’ll say, “What did you learn about this?” And they’ll say something and I’ll write it down. What did you love about it? And then at the end of it, I’ll circle the words that seemed to be a theme for that person through the whole process, and say, “It looks like this… These are the things that are most important to you in a job. Would that be a fair statement or would that be a fair assessment?” And if they say yes, then you go, “Great.” And it looks like these are the things that you didn’t enjoy about these positions, and you’ll circle those in red or whatever. And then we’ll have a conversation about it. Then I always have them take a picture of it, because most of them have never relived their past like that, ever. And then I’ll take a picture of it as well. And then we’ll go into really the fourth interview. Matt: Okay, I was just about to ask if there’s also a fourth interview and you’re saying there is. Aaron: There is the fourth interview. There’s actually a fifth interview too, but it’s much more laid back. So the fourth interview is, really we just wanna find out what best-case scenario looks like for them. What are their goals? Because at the end of the day, we as an employer, or me as a manager, or however you wanna break that down, the better we understand the people that work with us, and the better we are at being able to help them achieve their goals, the longer they’re gonna stay, the harder they’re gonna work, the more loyal that they’re going to be. And it’s just a win-win for everybody. Most managers, you know, a lot of businesses, it’s like, what is in this for me when they’re hiring the person. But if you’re able to really understand what’s important to someone, then that’s what you can help them try and achieve. And if you’re able to help them stay focused on it and achieve it, now you’ve got someone who’s invested in the business and wants your success because they understand that you want their success. Matt: It sounds like there is a really intentional dedication to finding out not just what the person can offer the team, but what the team can offer the person. Aaron: Yes, I heard it said once. Brett Jennings actually in San Francisco was telling me about this, and he said, “My job as an owner is to have my world so big that whatever world the people that are working on the team want to have, they can have that inside of our organization.” And if I’m able to figure out what they want their world to look like, and build my world big enough to where they can have what they want, there’s no reason for them to leave. Matt: Right. That’s excellent. Now, I think I heard you say that there’s a fifth interview as well. Aaron: Yeah. So the fifth interview is way more informal, that’s dinner so that you can meet their spouse. Because you can hire normal and marry crazy. And so we always take them out to a really nice…we’ll offer…we’ll tell them that it looks really good but the last step is really just going out to dinner and making sure that, you know, your husband is okay with it or your wife is okay with joining the team. And to have them meet us so that there’s a face to the name of, you know, hopefully who it is that you’re gonna be spending the next few years with at least, and hopefully the rest of your life. And then we take them out to a nice dinner and just have a conversation about… The whole hiring process always comes up. Because they’re like, “Oh my god, all he did was complain about how long it was taking” or, you know, whatever it is. So that always comes up. But again, now the spouse knows how important it is to us that we’re hiring the right person. And then we always tell them how many interviews we did for it, how many people they beat out, you know, all of those kinds of things because that gives them a sense of pride, that they’re taking a position that they actually earned versus like, yeah, we had, you know, “We have 46 people that we got resumes and interviewed for this job and you are the cream of the crop and the person that we wanna add to our team.” Matt: I gotta tell you, it actually sounds a little bit like the HomeLight interview process. Because when I got hired last year, I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” I think I had five interviews as well, Aaron. So I think there’s something going on here with this whole five interview thing. It was…it felt like quite an accomplishment getting through it. Let me ask you, who makes the ultimate decision to add someone or not? Is that you, as the team leader that has the final say, or is it…do you involve the group in it as well? Aaron: At this point with my COO, my operations manager, he’s been with me for five years as well and he’s really been an integral part of building up the business. And so I’ll always have a conversation with him. With the admin staff, like he’ll do the first couple of interviews, and then I’ll do the last couple of interviews, and then bring them onto the team. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it’s my responsibility to make sure that they’re a good fit. We also always…if it’s a sales position, we’ll have them go out to lunch with the rest of the team, and just ask questions, everybody will get to know each other. And then the team will report back to me on what their thoughts were. Matt: I’m thinking of when other agents are listening to this podcast, some of them I feel might be thinking, “Man, that guy takes this way too seriously.” What would you say to that? Aaron: I would say the cost of a bad hire is way more than the time that you spend. In the hiring class that I did with KW, it’s called…well, it used to be Recruit Select, and now it’s Career Visioning. Which is a great class, by the way, I’m a huge believer — KW has some really great training. They talk about the cost of what a bad hire is. And even just an admin bad hire can be in the 60, 70, $80,000 range of the difference between what your cost is and what the benefit is of a good hire. And I’m sure a lot of people have… I mean, most people have had a bad hire. Real talk, I mean, most people who have done any hiring at all have done a bad hire because they hire themselves or they hire someone that they like or whatever, versus hiring for the position. And so most people can resonate with like, “Oh, that was like a six-month nightmare.” But the thing about spending so much time at the front end, is A, once they come on to the team, they understand that there’s still a 60 or a 90-day period where they can be terminated for any reason. But most of the time, if you’re serious about it, and you’ve done your homework in bringing them on, they usually just step right in and just start working. And they’re a good fit because you’ve taken the time to figure out who’s a good fit and who’s not. And like I said, once you start talking to people, and you start hiring from the position and not the need, you’ll start seeing a difference in the quality of people that you…as you bring them down the line, the quality of the people just goes way up. Because most of the people that we talk to, or that I brought onto the team, all have jobs. You know, I’m not looking for someone that doesn’t have a job. I want somebody who’s happy in their job or maybe not happy in their job, they’re open to a new opportunity. Because those are the people that are, you know, that are gonna stay with you. Because they’re not…they haven’t been fired, they haven’t quit. Most of the time, those people there’s some kind of red flag going on anyway. And so, I’m looking for people that have a job. When I’m talking about…when I’m talking to people or telling people that we’re looking for a new hire, I’m like, “Who do you know that has talent, that is a great person. I don’t care if they have a job or not. Matter of fact, if they have a job, that’s great, that would be open to an opportunity of just talking to us and seeing if we might be a good fit for them.” And then you just throw that out there. Almost every single hire that we’ve done has been a referral from someone who’s like, “Hey, I think this guy would be a good fit for you.” “You should talk to this guy.” Or, “This girl has worked in my office and I think she’s really great. You should talk to her.” And so, they’re coming from a referral off the bat anyway. But I’m looking everywhere. I mean, I’ll talk to, you know, the banker or the lady who’s doing…the waitress or whomever it is. If they do a good job, you ask if they’re open to a conversation. Matt: Right. And I think what you’re speaking to right there, which is a really important point that maybe we should sort of wrap up on is, for this kind of system to work, I mean, it’s a really detailed, intentional system of looking for the right people and going through this five-step interview process that you just described, you have to first and foremost know exactly what you are looking for. And you have obviously done that. There’s…you know, certain traits or whatever it might be, you have a very specific idea of what you want to add to your team for these various roles. Aaron: Correct. And I will say this too and I…and just wrapping up again too, is that that is a huge part of building out a business and making a business decision. When I hired my operations manager, my COO, Mike, I had it narrowed down to three people, all three of them were awesome. All three of them would have been a great fit for my business at different times in my business. One of them was a GSD, man. She was get stuff done and would have been an amazing hire when I started my business because she was all about just getting out there, making it…getting it going, getting it done, all that kind of stuff. The other one was an older woman who had worked for an agent for like 20 years. And she was really the person that, if I was winding my business down or was looking in a place where I was just looking for stability, she would have been a perfect fit for the team of just like, “Let’s keep this boat going in the same direction for a long time.” And then Mike, that I ended up hiring for the process, he was the guy that was the systems guy. He was younger. He was super sharp. He was, you know, all about how can we build the business more efficiently, which is… I’m not the guy to build out systems. I love systems. I appreciate systems, but I’m a create/execute. And I was looking for somebody that was execute/finalize, and that’s who he was to a tee. And he has made a huge difference in our business and how smooth it runs, how it has grown, what our trajectory is for the next couple of years. I mean, he is really just my right-hand man. And that’s all because we took the time to figure out who it was we were looking for when we hired so that we get the results that we have now. (Speaker: Matt McGee, Host) Thanks so much, Aaron, for walking us through your team’s really rigorous interview process. Interesting stuff right there. Aaron mentioned that their system is based on Keller William’s Career Visioning. So, we should also say thanks to KW for teaching this system to any agent who wants to learn. By the way, if you wanna take this class, contact your nearest Keller Williams office and just ask them when and where the next Career Visioning class will be. Things, I guess, might be on hold now due to quarantines and such, and it probably depends how things are going in your area. Okay, let’s do our takeaways segment then we’ll have a quick note from our listener inbox and then we will wrap things up. Takeaway number one, Aaron said that he is constantly scouting talent. Early on in the conversation, he said he meets with two to three people per month, just to see who’s out there. He always wants to have people in mind in case someone leaves the team. And then combine that, too, with what he said near the end of the conversation, almost every hire has been a referral. So that’s what happens when you’re keeping your eyes and ears open and talking to people to find out who’s thinking about getting into real estate or joining a team, and so forth. Takeaway number two, Aaron shared the specifics of those five interviews they do with candidates and the deep dive into references. All of that is part of the Career Visioning system. They call every reference and then ask those references to give them more names of people to talk to. Because let’s face it, right, the three references you get from the candidate are all going to say nice things. But you’ll learn more if you cast the net a little wider and talk to some others. And then takeaway number three, I asked Aaron about why he takes hiring so seriously, and he shared some numbers. Hiring the wrong team admin, for example, can cost between 60 and $80,000. If you take the time upfront to really do these deep-dive interviews, you can save yourself a lot of money, time, and even relationships down the road. Our inbox filled up over the past week with a lot of emails about our past two shows with Tom Ferry, and thank you so much for that. This email from Joy Buscemi in New York State was pretty representative of your feedback. She said, and I quote, “Wow, that was so motivating and informative! I am going to begin implementing his recommendations right away.” We got several emails like that. Love getting that kind of feedback. So thanks to Joy, and everyone else who emailed. If you missed those two episodes with Tom Ferry, I highly encourage you to go back and give them a listen. Okay, if you have feedback, or questions for me, or for our guest today, Aaron West, you can leave a message 415-322-3328 or just send an email to walkthrough [at] homelight.com. That’s all for this week. Thanks to Aaron West for joining us and thank you for listening. Go out and sell some homes safely. We’ll talk to you again next week. Bye-bye!Links and Show Notes
Full Transcript
