Search Results for: hiring
Bad Grammar No Hire
I typically see two camps when it comes to bad grammar. The call-you-out-on-twitter-in-front-of-the-world-grammar-masters-of-the-universe. And the people-who-couldn’t-care-less-on-Tuesday-after-5p-masters-of-fluidity. Count me in that group for the most part. It’s just not something that rings my bell. It doesn’t make me think more or less of you if you can use the word circumlocutory property in a sentence. Or if you misuse its where an it’s should be. I don’t judge your ability to be exact or precise based on your ability to put to words together in a sentence. But some people do.
I ran across a post over at Harvard Business Review titled I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why. and it took my head spinning in a thousand directions. No offense to the author but I did hurl some insults. Not attacking him personally but rather self-remarking on his premise. A premise which is very sound by the way. At least as it relates to the line of work he hires people for. But the article is not the truly interesting part. The sum 3000+ comments the article has loaded up is fascinating to me. They are all over the board grounded in both awesomeness and masterfully inane anti-brilliance. I really urge you to click over and read a few hundred of them if you have the time.
What Would You Do
I’m not the first to admit that grammar is important. More well put, it would likely rank very low on my list of qualifying attributes for deciding to hire someone. Call me crazy but some of the hardest (smartest) property management people I have ever worked with or for are grammatically challenged. That is up and down the chain of command if you believe in such a structure. And I would not deduce it to lack of attention to detail. They just have a challenge with the written word.
How about you? Would you take the hard-line approach that the author of the article takes:
On the face of it, my zero tolerance approach to grammar errors might seem a little unfair. After all, grammar has nothing to do with job performance, or creativity, or intelligence, right?
Wrong. If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use “it’s,” then that’s not a learning curve I’m comfortable with. So, even in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great programmer who cannot write.
Or do you take a more relaxed all-encompassing approach in your hiring decisions?
Your really curious about the grammar conversation multifamily maniac,
M
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More Outlets Does Not Equal a Better Story…
…People do.
This is a simple unscientific case for passionate apartment marketing (professional or otherwise) content producers [Read: conduits]…
I picked the following quote off of a blog some time ago and pasted it into a file for future posting. Now, after a few search engine attempts, I can’t find the author of it so if it’s yours – please claim it and I will give you the due credit.
There seems to be a curious thing happening – the more outlets for stories we get… the less and less we’re hiring writers, content strategists, editors, designers. It’s like the second spawning of “reality programming”- no need for writers … it’s real life.
It’s a very interesting dilemma that we find ourselves facing in the apartment marketing space; do we go it alone in an amateur more reality based way or do we go pro? It’s not a simple answer but a necessary question to consider. And, the reasons run concurrent with trends in the way we influence, are influenced, how we consume and how we distribute information as a society.
The Niche is Coming Into its Own
With the absolute proliferation of platforms that host and syndicate blog content along with the opportunities to narrow our focus by creating lists and circles on the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and the king of the them all Facebook, we all have a niche to serve in some way.
Niches are not a new concept but they themselves are new to the likes of being served information in a passionate and pointed way. And, in mass from marketers, friends and acquaintances. And, thus the need for a professional or an amateur but passionate writer…
The Simple Case For
I am very much a visual person so I took the time to draw this out on a piece of paper. While visual, I am clearly not artistic so feel free to toss fruit from the front row…
Be it you advocate professional content producer/managers or the Sunday driver version; I think you would agree that you need a guru…[term used very loosely – in fact I hate that word – let’s go with…] someone who knows what they are doing.
I have been reading the book: Grouped by Paul Adams the Global Brand Experience Manager at Facebook. You might recognize my pic as an adaptation from the book. He makes a much deeper case for what I am trying to loosely convey in this post so buy his book – it’s a goodie. (The link is not tied to an affiliate account).
As we further fragment based on interests and or outright fatigue, the ability to connect via influencers (seemingly more a myth than realistic) is waning and or presenting itself as more of a fallacy. Small groups connected by someone who cares and someone who knows what they are doing will be the way to continue on with the conversation. Continue down the current path or seek the alternative and we’re just creating noise for ourselves. And, as the number of outlets increase, we have to ask ourselves are we just being noisy in more places? Instead, be a conduit and bring together the small groups that will move business in the future.
See that person in the middle of my pic – for the theory to work, that person must know (intimately) someone in each of the four outcroppings. The way this works is that this person is the conduit of/for information (influence) to flow between the outcroppings or small niche groups. Without the conduit, the potential potency of this group is never realized. They will never have the chance to know one another because they will have no real reason to do so.
The job of that someone who knows what they are doing and cares enough to do it is to bring the groups together in a way that is appealing to the individual members. He/she gives them a reason to believe. A reason to be merry. And, a reason to be intimate with one another. Intimate in a way that moves business forward.
Experiment
As I flesh this concept out in real life experiments – I’ll be sure to post updates.
Your – interested in interest graphs – multifamily maniac,
M
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Multifamily #Trust30: Tiger by the Tail
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
For today, trying asking yourself often, especially before you make a choice, “What do I know about this?”
(Author: Jen Louden)
It’s an attention economy and there are a plethora of messages competing for your interest every second of the day. Not only that marketers are getting more creative and more clever as it relates to sucking you in. Marry in some ADD or ADHD and you have the ingredients for never having to think for yourself again.
Multifamily Think
Anyone who has worked for or with me in the multifamily space knows that I expect you to think for yourself when it comes to running your business. Early in my career someone said, “I am handing you keys to a multi-million dollar business, I expect that you know how to tie your shoes.” Made a ton of sense to me then and it still does to this day.
Anymore whether it be a hiring agent or me personally, you better believe the homework will been done. That is to suggest the background has been explored, the questions have been asked and the references have been checked. And, while I don’t use FB or LinkedIn as a part of the hiring process, I do look you up.
The over-riding point here is that I expect to think for myself and I expect those that come to work for me to think for themselves. And, asking yourself what you know is just half the battle. The even more important part is believing the answer. Even on the tough stuff. I expect to fail fast. I expect people to fail fast. I expect to learn fast. And, I expect people to learn fast.
What I don’t expect is to light fires – if I have to do that then it’s time to move on.
Your always looking to catch a tiger by the tail contributor,
M
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Apartment Marketing: Friendslist
Friendslist might be something to keep an eye on. Especially in light of the shrewd move by Forrent.com in creating an exclusive, carve their client marketing partners right out of an avenue of advertising platform, relationship on FBs Marketplace. Could a platform like friendlist make the likely crazy expensive quasi-distribution point irrelevant? Likely not but I secretly hope so…
No offense FR. But, please know whether it was you, AF, AG or any other provider, I would feel the same. The move gave me every cause to expedite the reallocation of near $550,000 of FR specific marketing spend over the last 18 months. Not a complete departure but a semi-massive one. Stay tuned…
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Apartment leasing: Should we use contract leasing consultants?
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
According to Penelope Trunk, a couple things hold true for Gen Y in the work force; 1. They change jobs about every eighteen months, 2. They are great team players and 3. They are more productive than anyone else. Today I would like to focus on the changing jobs theme.
I think it is fair to assume that we have learned not to discard the applicant that has worked six jobs in the last three and half years. If you continue to think these candidates are flight risks and thus not worth your time, you might want to reconsider. The over-riding thought anymore is diversity and what Gen Y brings to the work place is something we are not 100% used to. The six jobs they participated in likely exposed them to a number of different thought processes and themes that might be the cause for a game changing event in your organization. Here is a point to consider about Gen Y – they love to learn new things and they want constant intellectual stimulation. Know this – it’s difficult to do that when you stay at one job to long. That is unless you have amazing leadership that understands their thought process and caters to it.
That leads me to this thought, might we consider setting up contractual work with performance based pay not unlike pro athletes are accustomed to. Do away completely with hiring a new employee, rather sign someone up for a brief stint once the time has elapsed move on to the next. What would our job posting look like for a super-star over-the-top leasing consultant? Would we even market direct anymore? Would we instead look for a new leasing super star agent (read: sports agent) segment to evolve? Will temp services morph into real life attorney agent houses who farm for, train, develop and then market to the highest bidders? Could we consider a leasing consultant draft process hosted in major and minor markets across the country? Maybe the Brainstorming, NAA, IREM and other major events could host draft day.
How exciting would our business look to a potential leasing candidate if they had to move through a draft process? How exciting would it be for our management teams formulate strategies to get the best of the best. How would that morph our recruiting departments? How much more emphases would be placed on the benefits of working for XYZ? How much more emphasis would be placed on being the best organization in the business?
Maybe utopia thinking and in the same respect it might be good cause for conversation. Let the community know by dropping a comment below. And, as always, thank you for taking the time to read. I hope you enjoy the content.
Have a compelling day.
Multifamily, Leasing consultants, Apartment leasing