The Corporate Real Estate (CRE) world is currently witnessing an increased number of job openings for CRE executives across all industries. Hiring firms seeking senior CRE executives are facing a market in which demand for these existing and projected positions is expected to exceed the supply of qualified and experienced CRE professionals over the next decade.
In our paper “How to Hire a Corporate Real Estate Executive to Support Corporate Strategies” (Crumley, Becker, Fisher, Mendence.
Bespoke Real Estate Advisors. 2020), we explored the state of the talent market and recommended the company reevaluate what is wants from its CRE department before embarking on a search for the person to run it. With the current market for senior CRE executives being so tight, a critical success factor to attracting the right prospects is for the hiring company to demonstrate its commitment to CRE and the role it plays in the organization. Another critical success factor to ensuring the job opening appeals to the top talent is a job description that accurately reflects the role and clearly articulates the opportunity.
Often the best candidates are those who are not looking for opportunities. In order to attract those individuals and to ensure the CRE position is filled with top talent possessing the right skills, it is important to create or update the detailed position description for the new or replacement hire. The position description will vary by company and scope of the role, but it is important all departments that work with the role have input and agree on appropriate competencies and the profile of an ideal candidate.
The position description should identify the specific skillsets required for each job. The role CRE plays in the core business, the characteristics of the core business itself, the nature of the real estate assets employed and the types of risks real estate brings to the business should drive which skills are most critical for the senior CRE executive. This primer poses questions and considerations, offers instructions and lists examples to help you create a CRE position description that attracts top talent.
