Hiring a finance broker: the onboarding process

First impressions last. From the moment you engage with a potential candidate, it is essential to be as transparent as possible, to understand each other’s expectations and to ensure your goals align. The entire recruitment experience should be reflective of your brand, and how your business operates.

Place importance on getting to know each other, and on understanding what motivates and demotivates. Establish a framework of how you both like to operate and how, if successful, you will operate together.

Also consider introducing candidates to other members of the team. This can act as a testimonial for your business and the team culture, and help paint a bigger picture of what it would be like to be a part of the team.

With this, and the expectations set around the two most important aspects – the role and the remuneration – the rest will fall into place. An offer is made and the onboarding process in the literal sense of the word starts. And it’s important to note the onboarding process when hiring a mortgage broker can be a little different to any other. It’s unlikely the broker can be productive on day one, nor that they’ll hit the ground running with financial results. A change of aggregators may be necessary and, in my experience, it’s important for you to play as much of a role in supporting the new recruit as is possible. It’s an aspect of the process you can’t necessarily control, and it’s certainly an aspect of the recruitment process that can have a negative impact if handled improperly.

From day one, it’s important to provide support, direction and training. Without a combination of all three, the process will ultimately fail. The goal is to get the new recruit as productive as possible, as quickly as possible, and by this I don’t mean keeping them happy and engaged by ensuring their remuneration structure is competitive and that their role is full of perks – the highest paid doesn’t equate to the most productive. Instead, you need to make the new employee feel valued and that the motivation factors discussed throughout the interview process are prominent. That way you can ensure their motivation is based on a personal desire to be productive.

Consider training and what that looks like as part of the onboarding process. Include things such as business best practice, technology and software inductions, and ensure the new recruits are familiar with company policies. Introduce them to other departments and provide context around who is responsible for what and how the wider team works.

Offer support and direction, and afford them the opportunity to get to grips with the lay of the land and the office politics, and ensure they understand their roles and responsibilities, as well as the resources at their disposal to help them perform and succeed. There are also more tangible things to consider such as a comfortable workspace, laptop and phone. In making sure the assets needed to perform in their role are ready for their start day, you demonstrate to recruits that you are both ready and eager to have them on board.

In summary, talent acquisition is just like customer acquisition – it’s about a strong brand and good reputation followed by an impressive customer experience to encourage repeat business and referrals. Recruitment isn’t a transactional process. It is important that the new recruit has a positive experience from start to finish, and is impressed throughout the onboarding process. In turn, you will increase employee retention and ensure new recruits become brand ambassadors that are genuinely invested in the success of your business.

This blog is the fourth instalment of a four part series titled ‘How to Hire a Mortgage Broker’. Click here to read the first three.

Zak Wilford is a specialist recruiter that works alongside mortgage brokers in growing their business through hiring great people. He first stepped into the mortgage industry in 2013, aggressively targeting aggregators and head-hunting their brokers and groups to join the then start-up aggregator Finsure and 1300Homeloan. After a year with Finsure, he joined recruitment agency Drake international, and a year later he stepped out on his own to fill a gap in the market – to start a recruitment agency specialising in working with finance brokers. Leveraging his network and experience, Zak now works with both commercial and residential finance brokers, sub-aggregators and other groups to help them grow through hiring great people. For more information, visit www.zakwilford.com.