Why Traditional Multifamily Hiring Misses What Matters Most

Hiring feels harder across multifamily, even as we post more roles, buy more tools, and screen more candidates. We dig into the hidden reason why: most hiring systems can’t see how people think. Resumes capture history, interviews reward polish, and personality tests surface preferences. None of them reliably predict how someone will communicate under pressure, make decisions with incomplete data, or manage resident conflicts when the stakes are real.

We walk through a practical shift to thinking-based hiring, starting with property-specific success profiles. Each asset is its own strategic business unit - lease-ups demand urgency and sales intent, stabilized communities need relationship depth and compliance, and urban or affordable properties carry distinct communication realities. By defining success precisely for a site and role, we can align expectations and evaluate what actually matters on day three, day thirty, and day three hundred.

From there, we show how to identify thinking patterns that forecast behavior. Conditional thinking depends on external levers like concessions, while ownership thinking activates internal strategies like re-engaging cold leads. With these signals in hand, AI-driven precision interviews generate targeted questions that probe real decision-making and tradeoffs, turning generic interviews into high-signal conversations. We also strip out process clutter - automated resume parsing, centralized information, and consistent workflows- so teams move faster with more confidence.

The payoff is clear: better alignment, faster hiring, lower turnover, stronger culture, and improved resident experience. If you’re ready to replace guesswork with insight and match the right minds to the right properties, subscribe, share this episode with your team, and leave a review telling us which thinking patterns you plan to hire for next.

About the Multifamily Innovation® Council:

The Multifamily Innovation® Council is the executive level membership organization that makes a difference in your bottom line, drives a better experience for your employees, and allows you an experience that keeps demand strong for your company. The council is uniquely positioned to focus on the intersection of Leadership, Technology, AI, and Innovation.

The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.

To learn more or to join, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com.

For more information and to engage with leaders shaping the future of multifamily innovation, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/.

Connect:
Multifamily Innovation® Council: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/
Patrick Antrim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickantrim/

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:42):
So, why multifamily hiring feels harder than ever?
If you talk to leaders acrossthe industry, you're gonna hear
the same story.
We're posting more jobs, we'rebuying more tools, screening
more candidates.
I mean, they're doing all theinterviews, all of that stuff,
right?
And hiring is not improving.
And it can be frustratingbecause we assume the challenge

(01:06):
is about getting more applicantsor reducing our time to hire or
repairing our processes.
We look internally, trying tofix something that's broken.
People are trying things,they're trying more job ads,
they're they're uh trying moreHR platforms or sourcing things
in different places.
Do we have the right place?
They're throwing more recruitersat it, more assessments, you

(01:29):
name it.
Yet here we are.
The problem is still the same.
We get candidates who look greatin the interviews, but they
don't perform when they get intowork.
We get promising resumes, theylook great on paper, but what's
happening is it's nottranslating into their real
work.
We're seeing hires struggleafter they get into our

(01:51):
companies with communication,decision making, or even working
under pressure.
And guess what happens?
Our turnover just continues togo up.
Why?
Because all these tools measurethe wrong thing.
Now, I'm gonna give you sort ofthis invisible reason why this
hiring process fails.

(02:12):
Think of like a root causeanalysis or something like that,
right?
Let me share the insight thatchanges everything.
Hiring does not fail because ofwhat candidates have done.
This is their resume and theirtrack record, all that
experience.
Hiring fails because companiescannot see how candidates think.

(02:34):
This is the part wheretraditional hiring methods
cannot detect.
The software we're using, it'snot designed to help us
understand that.
So the resume, if you thinkabout it, it shows our history,
right?
Not behavior.
Interviews show a polished, youknow, look, it's almost like a
performance.
Personality tests, they'relooking at more mostly a

(02:57):
preference, not a capability.
But thinking, thinking, I mean,you're underlying that.
Thinking, thinking, thinking iswhat drives real performance in
your multifamily environments.
Anywhere you are working, athought is influenced first.
So if you think about this,literally, thinking is how

(03:19):
people solve problems, how theymake decisions under pressure,
right?
You have this customer service,all the stuff going on around
sales, lease ups, pressures.
How they communicate withresidents, do they disarm
residents?
Do they have the ability tothink clearly through that?
How they collaborate internallywith their teams.
Uh, when things get messy, howthey respond, when things are

(03:41):
uncertain, how they interpretyour expectations.
This is a thinking process andtheir beliefs and assumptions.
How they even behave on daythree, right?
And heck, day 30 is a good tell,right?
But what about day 300, wherethey're deep in the
organization, how their thinkingaffects your business outcomes.

(04:01):
Now, the biggest hiring failureshappen because we did not
understand how a person thinks.
Not because you read the resumethe wrong way or we hired the
wrong person.
We just misinterpreted thisthinking process in the
interview.
But because we never really wereable to see this thinking uh

(04:24):
through the tools that we use,this is what ends up driving
their actions, but we didn'tknow that.
This is the heart of the issue,though.
And now let me give you a littlebit of, well, a little bit of
empowerment, okay?
A little bit of positivity here.
If hiring has felt difficult foryou and your team, it's not

(04:45):
because you're doing somethingwrong, it's because you've been
using tools that were neverdesigned to measure the thing
that matters most.
And leaders, once theyunderstand this, there is a
sense of relief, like, oh, okay,wait a minute.
It's not me.
I've been approaching this thewrong way, but now I know.

(05:08):
Right?
Suddenly there are you'reexperiencing these sort of uh
problems that you may have gone,misalignment, you're talking
about turnover, all thestruggles with maybe at your
properties, candidates notshowing for interviews, maybe
not performing.
It starts to make sense.
This friction that builds andbuilds and builds, it starts to

(05:29):
make sense once you realizethis.
And it's not a talent shortageeither, right?
It's a visibility shortage intohow people think.
Now, you were making decisionswithout information that
actually predicts success.
And that today is about tochange for you.

(05:49):
Let's talk about that shift.
Let's shift to thinking-basedhiring.
So, what what are we talkingabout here?
What what what does this processlook like instead of just
counting on resumes and stuff?
We shift from evaluating whatpeople have done to evaluate how
people think.
Let me repeat that.
We shift to evaluate, movingaway from what people have done,

(06:13):
like their resume and theirtrack record, to how they think.
Right?
Now, this is the foundation ofthinking-based hiring.
It is a new approach that givesleaders the ability to
understand a candidate'sapproaches to the real life
challenges they may have intheir business, in their role,
specific to the role you'rehiring for.
And it works because thinkingpredicts behavior, and behavior

(06:37):
predicts performance, whichmeans thinking is the earliest
signal of whether a person willsucceed or struggle.
Right?
Let's let's talk about how thisactually works now.
Now, properties have specificsuccess profiles.
This is what we end up buildingin Picasso Higher.

(06:58):
What this means is inmultifamily, for example, you
have two properties that canhave a same job title and
require completely differentstrengths.
Now, think of like a leaseup.
It may require urgency or salesintent, right?
High energy, uh, you know,someone to ramp up the sales
team and the marketing and allthat stuff.

(07:19):
Now, stabilized propertyrequires relationship building
and maybe more structure andmaybe process, compliance stuff,
right?
You have properties that are inurban areas that have different
communication realities thansuburban communities, or maybe
it's an affordable housingproject, right?
And different pressures withhigh task, high relationship

(07:42):
activities, um, then like maybea high-rise, right?
So every property is its ownstrategic business unit.
So Picasso Hire begins bycreating what we call
property-specific successprofiles.
These are um you know uh highcompetencies and success factors
specific to the roles.

(08:04):
These profiles define whatsuccess looks like in that exact
environment, not genericexpectations, not recycled job
descriptions because we'rerushing the process.
And, you know, it's true, youknow, practical success drives

(08:24):
this um property strategy.
So if you think of these successfactors, if you know the
practical things that arerequired for success to happen
and the behaviors attitude tothat, then we can detect that in
that interview process.
So this is what ensuresalignment before a conversation
even begins.
Now, let's start thinking aboutpatterns that then predict

(08:48):
success if we know this to betrue.
Once we know what success lookslike, the next step is
understanding how a candidatethinks, right?
So, first, let me just pausethere for a minute.
If we first know what oursuccess factor needs to be and
our competencies, then at thispoint, we're moving on to

(09:10):
evaluate thinking patterns,right?
So, what what does that mean?
You might be thinking, thinkingpatterns.
So each pattern revealssomething important about how a
person will behave on the job.
And patterns can be essentiallymost of what we do in our AI
model is, for example, ifsomeone says, if I had more

(09:34):
concessions, we would leasefaster.
Right?
This is a conditional thinkingpattern.
It shows a dependency on anexternal uh system or rent
increased or rent concessions orincentives or something like
that, which means in their mind,they're thinking, I'll be
successful if these externalthings are present in that

(09:57):
environment.
Now, if you know that going in,that's important because if you
don't have those externaldependencies, then we're in
trouble, right?
Another candidate might saysomething like Um, I worked for
um a company and we lookedinternally, we reworked our
communication strategy andre-engaged all of our cold
leads, right?

(10:17):
All the people that have signedup and just go back and
re-emerge those leads.
What this shows is an internalownership and a proactive
problem solving process.
Maybe you can work with that,right?
Same job title.
Completely different thinking.

(10:38):
And that thinking predictswhether the person will thrive
or struggle in a specificproperty environment.
Now, the power of interviewprecision in this process, once
we understand how someonethinks, Picasso Hire, which is
our AI model, generates thisprecision interview question for

(11:02):
each hiring manager and theirregional leaders.
So these questions are based onthe success profile of each
property, the thinking patternsof the candidate, and the
behaviors that drive thatperformance in that role.
Right?
So these are not genericquestions, they're uniquely
designed for the candidatecoming through and specifically

(11:24):
what that property needs or thatportfolio needs.
Now, this turns interviews intostructured, really high-quality
conversations instead ofguessing with these standard
generic template questions.
Now, it gives managers umclarity.
Um, it creates consistency,right?

(11:46):
And it helps your regionalsguide more effective hiring in
the locations where that hiringis being placed.
And it improves hiring accuracyas well across the entire
portfolio.
You do have the governance tosee how these decisions are
being made across the markets,which is really productive if
talent is your last realcompetitive advantage.

(12:07):
Now, what we're also doing inthis process is we want to
reduce all the clutter thatcomes with this process.
You got resumes and emails andattachments going all over the
place.
We're removing all that.
Think of like a 10-minute taskto eight-minute task, right?
A clutter that just slows acompany down.
We want to remove that.
So Picasso Hire uses uh resume,even vision AI, to extract

(12:32):
relevant details from theseresumes as they come in.
It's a manual work.
We take all that out.
Everything is organized, uh,it's it's ready for evaluation.
There's no spreadsheets, noswitching between platforms or
systems.
You're not digging around forinformation, like where's their
email and all that kind ofstuff.
What we're doing here is we'recreating speed, we're reducing

(12:54):
friction, and hiring becomessmooth rather than this chaotic
process, right?
The whole goal hire better andfaster.
And when leaders understand howpeople think and what each
property requires, decisionsbecome really obvious.
You hire better becausealignment is clearer.
You hire faster because claritybrings confidence, right?

(13:16):
And turnover drops because theright people enter the right
environments.
Teams are stabilized becauseexpectations are matched with
what's coming in as newcandidates.
You start seeing performancerise, and because of that, we're
producing stronger results.
I mean, ultimately, that'sthat's our job, right?

(13:37):
So hiring stops being thatreactive, it becomes more
strategic.
And in a theatrical way, uh, youknow, deeply practical way, um,
that changes outcomes across theportfolio, right?
So I just want to say, listen,um, I want you to leave at least
knowing this.

(13:57):
Um, hiring does not fail becausecompanies cannot attract talent.
It fails because they were nevergiving away to understand how
people think.
And once we see our thinking,you start to unlock a new level
of clarity and you place theright people in the right roles,
you end up supporting thembetter, you're reducing your

(14:19):
turnover, uh, you strengthen theculture, you improve the
resident experience, and youhire better and faster.
Now, if that resonates with youand you would like to learn more
about how to bring this intoyour organization, visit us at
PicassoHire.com or reach out toour team.
I really appreciate you spendingthe time with us.

(14:39):
I wanted to make sure that youleft with that one key idea that
is how we think and how we getto the right candidates, and we
can hire better, faster.