12 Secret and Unusual Places to Recruit Real Estate Agents and Amazing Staff
Recruiting a strong real estate team starts with widening the places where you look. Chris Pollinger’s guide connects the idea to practical recruiting work and was featured by Inman News. The useful question for a broker or team leader is not whether one group is automatically a fit; it is which communities, skills and conversations can reveal people who are ready to learn the work.
Use the twelve channels below as prompts for a fair, permission-based recruiting plan. Define the role, describe the training and schedule, and assess every candidate against the same job-related criteria. A channel is only a starting point: the conversation and the evidence of capability make the decision.
Secret Spots to Find Amazing Staff
Professional Networking Sites
Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn make it possible to search for experience, skills and shared professional interests. Write a clear role description, identify the work a new hire would own and invite a conversation rather than assuming a profile tells the whole story. A thoughtful message can open a relationship with an experienced agent or an operations candidate who is considering a change.
Social Media
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can show how someone communicates, teaches or serves a community. Treat public posts as context, not as a hiring test. Engage respectfully, ask whether the person is open to a professional conversation and move any evaluation into a consistent interview process.
Virtual Assistants
Remote assistants can support administrative, marketing and computer-based work when the scope is explicit. Start with a written task list, working hours, communication norms, data access rules and a paid trial or defined onboarding plan. Evaluate the quality and reliability of the work against the agreed brief; compensation and classification should follow the applicable local requirements.
Student Interns
Students can bring curiosity and useful early experience to research, content, event support or operations projects. Build an internship around learning objectives, supervision and a schedule that respects school commitments. A short project with clear feedback gives both sides better information than a vague promise of exposure.
Stay-at-Home Parents
Parents returning to paid work may bring organization, prioritization and client-service experience from many settings. Make the role’s response expectations and meeting schedule visible at the start, then discuss the flexibility that is actually available. Judge the candidate’s skills and fit for the role rather than making assumptions about family responsibilities.
Retired Seniors
People with long careers can contribute judgment, local knowledge, mentoring or part-time capacity. Ask what kind of work they want now and design a role that makes the commitment sustainable. A structured handoff of experience can strengthen an operations team while leaving room for the person’s other priorities.
Secret Spots to Recruit Real Estate Agents
Gyms
Gyms and fitness centers are places where professionals meet through regular routines. If a conversation begins there, keep it low-pressure and move any recruiting discussion to an appropriate setting. Do not infer sales ability from a hobby; ask about communication, follow-through and the training the candidate would need to serve clients well.
Veteran Groups
Veteran networks include people with varied occupations, leadership styles and goals. Explain the language of the role, the licensing path and the support available instead of assuming military experience maps directly to real estate. A clear ramp-up plan and a patient conversation can help a candidate translate prior skills into a civilian client-service setting.
Retail Stores
Retail professionals practice listening, product explanation and service recovery every day. A respectful approach should acknowledge that they are working, avoid interrupting customers and offer a simple way to follow up. In an interview, explore how their customer experience translates to prospecting, documentation and long-term relationship work.
Nurses
Nursing develops communication, prioritization and care coordination, all of which can be relevant to a client-service role. Recruitment should describe the realities of prospecting, contracts, scheduling and variable workload clearly. Invite the candidate to compare those demands with their goals rather than promising that one career is easier or more lucrative.
Teachers
Teachers often bring presentation, planning and relationship skills. Discuss how those skills could support consultations, market education or team mentoring, and be direct about the business development work an agent must learn. A realistic transition plan is more useful than a broad claim about what every teacher will enjoy.
Community Colleges
Community colleges can connect brokers with students and career changers exploring real estate. Offer a guest session, office-hours conversation or clearly scoped project that explains licensing, ethics and the daily work. Use the contact as a way to build a local talent pipeline, then apply the same selection criteria to every applicant.
Job boards such as Indeed still have a place in a balanced search. The unusual channels add value when they lead to a more specific conversation about skills, expectations and support. Related reading includes optimizing LinkedIn, the Recruiting Masterclass and sales-coaching practices.
Chris Pollinger, founder and managing partner of RE Luxe Leaders, shares additional member resources for brokerage and team leadership.
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