Becoming a Professional Talent Manager

I recently partnered with Real Trends to publish a long-form article on new agent talent management.

I’ll cover a few high points in the next couple Insights, but you’re welcome to jump ahead if you want to read it all in one sitting.

There are professional talent managers in every industry.

They don’t carry this job title or wear name tags, but they consistently hire better than their peers and build teams full of individuals who perform significantly above industry averages.

These professional talent managers see the churn in the employment market as a great opportunity to capture high-potential individuals, but they see hiring through a different lens.

If you’re aspiring to become a professional talent manager, here are some of the things you’ll need to do differently.

Never stop hiring.

Many offices (virtual or physical) are already near capacity.

There is a tendency to think,

I need to stop hiring so I can better train, coach, and manage the agents I already have on my team.

This sounds reasonable on the surface, but professional talent mangers know that growing a high-performing team is not a static process.

There needs to be a constant flow of new players on and off the team to find the true high performers.

Think of it like a professional baseball team.

If you have a mediocre team, does it make sense to abandon your farm system? Of course not.

Up-and-coming talent will always be part of the equation for building the successful teams of the future.

Both in baseball and in real estate.