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47% of candidates at first stage interview have been rejected due to their lack of knowledge and understanding of the business that they’re interviewing for. You have to be able to know that you can get on with the team
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and you’re working with these people In a few seconds, you could probably give a negative impression to someone. In this age of social media, we’re seeing probably 60, 70% of the first stage interview
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tends to be on teams. What can you do from day one? This is the amount of money you’re paying for me this is what you’re going to get from day one. One thing that’s always known as being a bit taboo
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is how or when you should bring up salary. It’s all well and true saying, “I can do this” “I can achieve this,” but you need to have tangible details that can back up those statements.
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Welcome to Macroscope, your lens into real estate hiring and careers, brought to you by Macdonald & Company. In this first episode, we’ll be talking about
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interview techniques and the real estate market and the built environment market. For context, I personally deal with local authority, government
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built environment, that would be town planning or building control. And we’ll be going through all the best techniques, information I provide
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to my candidates before they go into interviews, whether it’s in person or on teams. Yeah, so what we’re hoping to do with this first episode is to
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give you much more of an insight of how we find interviewing techniques across the different kind of sectors within real estate. As Alex just mentioned, he covers kind of more local authority and contract work.
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Whereas myself, I cover permanent recruitment kind of across private sectors within town planning and also general practice surveying.
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So what we’re hoping to do is be able to give you an insight into the So one stat that we’ve come across recently is
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that they’re working on and the type of role that they’re actually applying for. So we wanted to just sit here and have a quick discussion about what we think would be the best avenue
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when you’re going to a first stage interview and what you should be preparing for. I mean I find that quite interesting. I mean in my market the built environment, local governments mainly,
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town planning and building control. I always tell my candidates to read up on the council’s website as much as possible, to see what kind of applications
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the councils are facing and each area and each council will be completely different. So it’s always good to then be able to match your experience, what you can do from day one
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from candidates is if they didn’t get a job it’s because they haven’t done any initial research. Across obviously both local authority and the private sector work,
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I think in this age of social media you get a lot of information on companies across LinkedIn, you’ve got React News, Green Street News, all these different news outlets that focus purely on
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real estate news. It’s so easy to go out there and find little bits of information that you can relate to, relay your experience to your current company and how you could utilise your experience to
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obviously help the company you’re applying for to progress in the future. I mean the depth of research may be different in between seniority. I mean planning officers for
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example though look at the volume of applications that each planning officer would have to deal with and it’s all kind of target based for them basically they need to get as many out the door as possible.
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Whereas a director of place or a director of planning will be looking at the government’s side of things of the council, they’ll be looking at the elected members, elected officials, how
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and relating their experience to different councils if they’ve dealt with councils where there’s this hung part like for example split between Conservatives and Labour which is always
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a bit tricky as you’re probably well aware and how they can manage those environments to be able to deliver for local people
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and their wider planning service. Yeah absolutely, again there’s a lot of similarities between that and the private sector as he’s saying when you’ve got
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candidates that are at the more senior level. They’ve been in the industry for 20, 30 years they’re going to be well aware of all the kind of governance and the kind of red tape across the
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different sectors across real estate, especially as you said within town planning and the new planning acts, they’re all coming in and the planning reforms that we all should be aware of these things,
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and be able to utilise their skills and knowledge and experience, to kind of put together a more strategic approach to the interview rather than what it would be at more of a graduate level. is definitely beneficial to you in an interview process.
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A lot of times like obviously first impressions do matter, I know it’s cliche to say but turning up looking relatively smart with kind of trousers and a shirt would definitely put you in good stead as a first impression.
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I know that you can get certain situations where more casual attire is completely fine, in jeans and t-shirts, but I feel like for some of these roles that we’re doing in real estate
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when you could be client facing and going out and meeting candidates, meeting clients, trying to push sales then I think a smart dress attire is
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definitely beneficial. I know that you have slightly different views on the public sector side. Yeah and I agree, I mean the public sector is more casual as you’re aware, but my candidates,
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my contractors are going into interviews are paid significantly more, so I think that they need to dress smartly and obviously mimic the hiring manager as best you can, because obviously they
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set the tone for the department, but you are above you’re getting paid a lot more money and you’re a significant cost to that council so I do think
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you should have a, there should be a level of professionalism when going into local authority councils. No, absolutely agree. I think one thing that all candidates could learn from is leaning on their recruiters.
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Typically the roles that I work on, the roles that you work on, you typically met with the hiring manager, you kind you kind of know a bit more about the business and the culture as a whole, so we’d definitely be able to
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relay you information as how to kind of dress if we’ve gone to meet them and they’re very casual then we know that it’s the lesser of a threshold and then be able to kind of match what they’re
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looking for, so definitely think that we could help all candidates out with this situation as well. Definitely and I agree and even if the interviews are online being smart is easier. It’s easier to
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be smart online than it is in person and I think even it’s not just your attire, it’s the way you carry yourself, the language you use, your
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handshake first like I said earlier in the call in the chat first impressions are hugely important, and I feel if your body language
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it’s, I can’t remember the stat off the top of my head but what is the stat where you, I think it’s 80% of what you communicate is body language then the remaining 20%
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more verbally. It’s obviously fantastic in a way, obviously it
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saves time, saves pressure, and can kind of get a nice informal introductory meeting online before taking the time to go meet in person. So one thing we wanted to touch on here is how
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to make sure that even though when things are over teams and things are slightly less sincere in a way than what they are in person you get a little bit less
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of kind of the personal touch. I just wanted to just jump in here and just say how we feel like you can make the best of the teams situation. Yeah no I agree, I think one thing that should be good
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is to obviously check your internet connection, that is first and foremost the amount of times that that’s been an issue in interviews more often than you believe.
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Obviously make sure you’re in a clean, have a clean background, or just dim your background at the very least, and make sure you’re in a
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very quiet area because obviously microphones can pick up absolutely everything. tend to tell people to pause, because there is a
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natural pause in interviews anyway and I feel sometimes, if you carry on the conversations then you end up speaking over each other quite often on
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Zoom calls, so even when you’ve finished your points give it a couple of seconds, see if they’re going to reply and then if not carry on with what you’re going to say. Yeah absolutely, I think from my side
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another thing as well is even though it is online there’s still an element of kind of body language and how you kind of hold yourself on the camera, if you’re like kind of hunched over into the camera
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kind of talking really close into the mic rather than kind of sitting back, sitting up straight like as if you would be in a normal interview as well, I think it would go a long way. I agree.
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The way you do that is demonstrating what you can do on day one. For my guys in the town planning contract market, it’s basically researching in detail,
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what applications they are facing right then and there. in certain areas. That’s what ties into the research side of things.
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It’s basically demonstrating as best as you can, and how effective you can be from day one. Yep, no absolutely, I think it definitely transpires over towards the private sector as well.
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I think the skill checklist is probably slightly more lenient on the private sector side, because these are contract roles which are for a set period of time.
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There’s a longevity, career progression and development that could be involved as well. Also, being able to explain to them your progression plans, your development plans
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and what you could bring to the team in two, three, four, five years as well. For me, showing a cultural fit is important. Obviously, you have to be able to know that you can get on with the team,
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and you’re working with these people. You’re sat next to them or virtually next to them five days a week, 37 hours a week. You could have the best CV in the world,
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you could be the most competent planner in the world, but if you don’t get on with your peers or don’t have a personal skill, any personal skills, you potentially may fall on a hurdle.
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Some of the candidates like, for example, if you go for an interview and you’re the hirer, and you’ve got two candidates that on paper are perfect,
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you’re going to go with a candidate that you had a bit more of a chat with because you have a bit more of a personal relationship with because at the end of the day you’re going to be working with these people.
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So you’re going to go for the person who is the right fit on paper but has to be the right cultural fit as well. Yeah, no, absolutely. Exactly the same over on our side.
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I think building rapport with the hiring managers is obviously something that’s going to massively benefit your application and going through the process that leads into what we’ve already discussed by doing new research.
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like sport, let’s say, football team or anything like that. If you can find out that information it’s definitely going to help you chat with them, build obviously more of a rapport, more of a friendship and it’s always going to go a long way into getting you hired.
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It’s another thing that you could possibly leave on your recruiter for. As I said, we would have met with the hiring managers that you’re going to be speaking to. So we will have more of an insight into kind of
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how to get along with them and what different things. And if we’ve got any more insights, then we can obviously help you with that as well. I agree. I mean, typically in my market, it’s kind of
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usually one interview or two interviews at most. The first one is always done virtually, second one is done in the office. And that could mainly be a reason kind of just to see who you are and that you’re
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the sort of same similar person that you met on the team’s call. And basically you’ll be shown around the council or shown around the department, meet everybody.
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And then usually after that, they’ll say, “Yea or nay.” So it’s always important to kind of be as friendly as possible,
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and have the best posture, and give those first impressions, not just to the hiring manager, but to the multiple members of the team that you’ll meet.
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One thing I would say is just body language throughout the whole, If you’re lucky enough to get invited back for like a walk around of the department, body language is key.
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Because even if in a few seconds you could probably give a negative impression to someone that you might not know that’s quite important. Yeah, absolutely.
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It seems, obviously this is again similar, never seem to see a one stage interview on our side. Everything seems to be at least two, sometimes even three.
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We even have some clients that go into further rounds than that. But yeah, typically as you said, first one’s teams, then definitely in person. And we’ve seen a lot of more, especially at more senior levels, being more of kind
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of cultural, social interviews as well, kind of in the end of the process. more of an understanding of cultural fit,
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kind of how you’ll get along with your peers and all that. Again, it obviously is just as important as how good you are at how good you are doing your job. I mean, I’ve heard stories that people at their interviews have been absolutely fantastic.
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They loved them. They’ve taken them out for a few beers after work, and the person’s turned out to be a maniac. And then the other has been rescinded the day after.
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So I mean it does work, and it just shows you have to be consistent, in social environments, as well as professional environments. Yeah, absolutely.
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But we know what we want to talk about in this section is the fact that interviews are massively a two-way street. This is also as much of an opportunity for you to be interviewing your potential new employer.
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How it’s going to work for you, your development, if the role is actually right for yourself. Is it something you can see yourself doing long-term? Is it the kind of place you’re going to want to stay
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for the next kind of 10 to 15, 20 years of your career? And it’s a massive opportunity for you as well to ask good questions from your side, kind of learn about what exactly you want from the opportunity.
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What things are you kind of not happy with at your place and how is it going to be different at the new firm, and just make sure that the role is actually perfect for you as much as it is a fit for them.
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I 100% agree. I mean, like from my side of things, it’s definitely about sort of work-life balance and flexibility. A lot of my contractors have sort of families and kids and whatnot,
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so this is where you iron out if it’s logistically doable, Also, you need to talk about sort of the
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applications and what the actual projects entail, and if that will further your career or if it’s kind of a, a sort of step back in what you’ve previously dealt with.
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Obviously, that’s something you’ve always got to take into account. And obviously, with planners, especially, chartership. Will this project benefit your chartership or will it or will they even allow you
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to apply for you or pay for you to become chartered? And MRTPI. So it’s always definitely a two-way street in that sense.
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No, absolutely. I think it’s a great platform for you to delve so much deeper into kind of the understanding of the opportunity. So when you go for the roles, as you see it with most things,
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all you see is a job description on a piece of paper. Or a quick conversation with your recruiter. Who can give you as much insight as they know, but obviously they’re not in there day to day
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within the businesses as the people who would be hiring are. Definitely a two-way street.
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Definitely. And like you’ve always got to remember, you’re the one that’s upending your life for this move. And if it doesn’t work out, it’s going to make
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things a bit more difficult for you going forward. So this is where you need to make sure that everything is 100% accurate and 100% the right move,
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because otherwise you’ll be in the same boat a month or two afterwards. One thing that’s always known as being a bit taboo is how or when you should kind
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of bring up salary within interviews and the kind of total remuneration and package of the roles, because there’s always kind of a bit of treading on egg shells around the subject.
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So when do you kind of feel like that should be brought up? Well, it’s a bit different for me, but I mean, I always have, with day rates and hourly rates, my candidates and clients will know a ball-park figure
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of how much it will roughly cost. But the reason I like to kind of lean into confirming the day rates and hourly rates after the interview, is in my environment it’s ever-changing.
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And I could guarantee an hourly rate with the client. And then by the time the candidate gets the interview, the role could have potentially changed. It is more complex than what the candidate originally thought.
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Local government’s always an ever-changing environment. So the reason I like to do that is then after the interview, I can then hit the client with the all-in-charge rate.
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And there’s no having to renegotiate a different charge rate because sort of extra projects were discussed in the interview, which would obviously they’d need significantly more remuneration
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compared to when we agreed at the start of the process. So it’s a bit different for me, but it’s there or thereabouts. Both parties will know the ballpark figure. Yeah, no, I completely understand
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It’s still very similar on the private sector side as well. I think being open and transparent is just going to make things better for everyone in the long run. That’s both from both sides, from candidate side and from a client side,
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because if you’re going in and you don’t know what the salary is, then people aren’t going to apply for the role. There needs to be transparency from both sides. I think, as you said, when I take on roles on
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the private sector side, I like to get a ballpark. You have to get a ballpark just because you know where to target the market, where to target the candidates, and just being able to offer them and say, “We’re working within this range.
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If that’s going to work for you, then we’re happy to progress through the process.” And then it works out the same for the candidates and everyone kind of knows they’re in the same boat. And then typically it gets to kind of, it’s
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after the first stage, maybe second stage, I mean, the second stage interview process, then there’ll be clients talking about more figures, you’ll get down to the finer details, but at least everyone
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at that point is already in the same ballpark. Yeah, no I agree. So let’s next talk about kind of soft skills. teamwork and problem solving.
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So I think from them three, that’s probably the, if you are in an interview situation, being able to kind of demonstrate things across them three situations would definitely be the most beneficial.
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Within the kind of real estate industry and the line of work we’re in, most of the stuff I work is consultancy-led. So there’s a lot of collaboration and teamwork, whether you’re working with the client,
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whether you’re working with the different teams, whether you’re a planner and working with the development team, whether you’re a surveyor and working with the kind of, working with the agency team or the land team,
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there’s a lot of collaboration within the industry, whether it’s within internal, within your company, or whether it’s external, with agents, with clients, if you’re gonna be part of their brand,
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how you’re gonna look to the outside world when you’ll meet with clients and how that’s all gonna work and how you’re gonna be able to collaborate and work with them in the teams and get to the kind of desired end result of all the projects you work on.
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No, I agree. I mean, obviously that shows that you have to have quite a nice personality, a sort of easy-going person. I mean, best way to do that, to demonstrate that for myself,
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would be obviously avoid awkward silences. That’s one of probably the most important questions, but obviously don’t be too overly keen and sort of shower the person
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with too many questions. But I would say in an interview, it’s always best to ask a few questions. For example, you can ask them what issues they had.
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If you’re like a graduate, for example, you could ask them what sort of issues they faced in the first couple of years as a planner, or if you’re at like a senior director level
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or assistant director of planning, you can also ask what kind of challenges the council has been facing in the last five years, especially in the industry I work in,
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sort of the government reorganisations on the horizon. So you can ask, that’s obviously a big challenge. So you can ask where does he see the council, or the government in like 10 years time,
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and yeah, just be as sort of inquisitive as possible, but trying to be as subtle as well. Yeah, I think that anyone’s going to be naturally curious anyway,
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when you’re going for a new role, and I think being able to kind of, yeah, just ask them questions, get the right answers you need. I know we’ve mentioned earlier, everything’s a two way street as well.
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So it’s from both sides. Yeah, and just also it’s just being sort of switched on from the time you work into reception, there might be a little bit of hints
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that you can sort of speak about in the interview. You might see like a picture of him and his wife in, I don’t know, Alaska or something that you can try and relate to and stuff like that.
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So little hints and tips around offices that you can sort of show that you’re, bring your personality across and show that you’re a right fit for the team.
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Yep, absolutely. So Dan, from our conversation today, what sort of important points can you reflect on to summarise? I know it is kind of scary
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and it can be quite daunting going for these interviews feeling you have to talk about yourself, but I think they should all be aware that it’s as much about you as it is about them.
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And on the second note of that, I think building rapport with the interviewers is definitely the most beneficial thing that you can do. Lean on your recruiter as much as you can. They’ll be able to give you much more
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of an insight into culture, kind of into the people they would have met with them before, they would have spoken to them before. So you can get kind of more of a basic understanding of who you’re going to be meeting
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before you even go into the call, rather than be kind of a immediate kind of shock. When you do meet someone, just having that information first. I completely agree.
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I mean, the points I would sort of highlight is definitely sort of soft skills as well. So being punctual, obviously body language,
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sort of communication is highly important. And obviously specifics. What can you do from day one? This is the amount of money you’re paying for me.
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This is what you’re going to get from day one. And obviously in permanent recruitment, this is what you’re going to get in four, five, ten years time. And you do that by being very specific,
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sort of have details of examples that you can refer to. It’s all well and true saying I can do this, I can achieve this, but you need to have the tangible elements,
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details, that you can back up those statements. And I think for me, that comes obviously, leads on to preparation. If you’re exploring your next role
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or want to dive deeper into this episode, check out the show description for more information. To connect with a consultant, visit maconaldandcompany.com/contact,
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or subscribe to the Macdonald & Co YouTube channel for more episodes of Macroscope. You can also find us on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
