by Ben Hess, Managing Director, ThirdPool Recruiting
The aging of the agent workforce is a demographic reality that many real estate leaders list as one of their top strategic concerns.
Since the average age of real estate agents in most markets is now over 55-years-old, the focus of many hiring managers is to seek out younger agents as new hires. Younger agents are the most desirable replacements to those who are retiring because they have the most long-term potential (ie. hire them young and keep them around for as many years as possible).
This all sounds good, but how does this approach stack up to some of the latest research on millennial generation hiring? This topic was recently addressed by Derek Thompson, a senior editor at the Atlantic, and the results may surprise you.
Thompson highlighted recent youth unemployment research conducted by economists Martin Gervais, Nir Jaimovich, Henry Siu, and Yaniv Yedid-Levi. There were several finds with direct application to real estate hiring.
Hiring agents in their 20s has drawbacks.
Jumping between jobs in your 20s, which strikes many people as wayward and noncommittal, improves the chance that you’ll find more satisfying—and higher paying—work in your 30s and 40s.
[Researchers noted:] People who switch jobs more frequently early in their careers tend to have higher wages and incomes in their prime-working years. Job-hopping is actually correlated with higher incomes, because people have found better matches—ie. their true calling.
The most talented individuals are likely to job-hop in their 20s.
It may be better to wait until candidates are in their 30s and they’re looking for their true-calling. For years, one of our clients has told me that he likes to hire agents who are “settled in their lives.” This research seems to support this idea.
Waiting too long to hire (into the later 30s and 40s) has drawbacks too.
There is a notion that “today’s younger generation” is more likely to quit a job than workers were in the 1970s and 1980s. This is not the case.
For the HR person considering a young worker, it’s not true to say, ‘If I hire them they are more likely to leave my firm.’ That likelihood hasn’t changed. But if that person does leave my firm, the next job is more likely to be totally different. Young people aren’t quitting more. They’re experimenting more.
Notice the last part of what the researchers discovered: Experimenting with something “totally different” is common in the 20s, but tails off in the 30s.
Becoming a real estate agent is something totally new for most individuals. It only makes sense that many of the most talented individuals will have found “their true calling” by the time they are 40 years old.
Is there an age-related “sweet-spot” for hiring agents?
There may be a sweet spot happening in the early 30s where a person is still willing to try something new, but they’re ready to focus their job search on discovering their true calling.
Researchers also noted that wage-growth happens for most people in their 30s and 40s. If an individual is looking for a career to apply what they learned in their 20s and experience significant wage growth in their 30s, the real estate industry may be a great fit.
Try weaving some of this research into your next interview—especially if the candidate is in his/her early 30s. You may tap into something your interviewee intuitively knows but has not been able to articulate.