How the Housing Market Affects Recruiting

Depressed demand and soft housing prices foil lots of deals. Take the case of Retina Surgeon, Dr. Arnold Smith. A weak home-value market prevented a gifted surgical specialist from accepting Smith’s best and final employment offer. The candidate owed more on his mortgage than its market value and neither party would swallow the cash outlay required to sell the house.

Both parties experienced 11th hour heartbreak. We cannot blame the market, the house or any external culprit. The recruiting process failed them. The right process with correct steps would identify any deal-killing issues up front.

The story did have a happy ending. Dr. Smith asked us to re-energize his search. We mined our database and executed a campaign that addressed potential deal-killers. We filtered out mismatches early and pinpointed a short-list of matching candidates. By avoiding these last-minute surprises, Dr. Smith quickly got back on track and hired a great associate.