Recruitment’s Secret Weapon: The Marketing Department

Finding qualified employees has long been a challenge for apartment owners and operators, where workforce retention remains a persistent concern. According to RCLCO data cited by the National Apartment Association, the turnover rate for on-site employees was 29.2 percent between 2024 and 2025. For companies with more than 450 employees, that number climbs to 33.4 percent.  

Think about it—although new construction slowed in the first quarter of 2026, CBRE reported that 58,100 units were delivered. All of those new communities need to be staffed, as do existing ones and corporate offices. So, what can multifamily companies do to better compete for talented workers?

“The most successful multifamily companies no longer view marketing and recruiting as separate disciplines,” said Jeff Klotz, CEO of The Klotz Group of Cos. “Every piece of content a company publishes influences how prospective residents, employees, investors and vendors perceive the organization.”

That’s why corporate branding is so essential—not just to attract and convert prospective renters but to familiarize and ultimately attract new employees as well.

Strong brands draw people in and make them want to be part of the company, Klotz added. “In today’s environment, every marketing campaign is also a recruiting campaign, whether you intend it to be or not.”

“There’s no one who understands the brand better than the marketing folks. I find it helpful to be involved in drafting or reviewing job descriptions to make sure they align with who we are as a company.”

—Jonathan Starzyk, Director of Marketing, Bonaventure

Branding a company to position it as a desirable or even “cool” place to work can be accomplished using the same tools you’d use to market individual apartment communities. “Geofencing, social media advertising, paid search and localized campaigns can all be used to target potential employees, particularly leasing professionals, maintenance technicians and customer service professionals,” shared Caroline Mills, director of digital marketing for Resident360, a multifamily branding and marketing agency. “Every day, we invest in driving traffic to community websites, social media pages and digital advertising campaigns. By incorporating recruitment messaging into those touchpoints, we can increase awareness among potential candidates without significantly increasing marketing spend.” 

Here’s how your marketing and human resources teams can work together to recruit and hire the best talent.

Build a strong careers website 

It’s essential to include a compelling careers section on your company website. “We have a true partnership from a content standpoint,” said Alison Donnelly, senior director of talent acquisition at Greystar. “Talent acquisition informs marketing about what candidates need to hear, and our marketing team helps us build out our careers site.” 

Instead of a bare-bones page that just includes job openings, consider including information about benefits, company values and training programs. Give prospective employees a feel for your company culture by including day-in-the-life videos, employee promotion stories, testimonials and award notifications. 

Don’t forget to use other avenues to promote open opportunities, as well. “We always lean into our marketing team to help us position a role in a certain way or if we want to showcase promotions of our team members on LinkedIn or other channels,” Donnelly said. “While it’s not a job posting, it shows candidates what it’s like to work at Greystar.” 

To attract younger candidates, Greystar uses Instagram as its main social media recruitment site, and the marketing team helps create content such as employee spotlights so that candidates can better appreciate the company’s culture. 

Klotz also markets his company’s organizational values. “Many multifamily marketing campaigns focus exclusively on amenities, floorplans and resident events,” he said. “Smart operators also market their culture.” 

As part of the company’s marketing campaigns, he includes information about employee recognition programs, volunteer projects, training initiatives, career advancement stories, internal promotions and community involvement so that prospective employees can see themselves succeeding at the organization. 

Recruitment efforts

“There’s no one who understands the brand better than the marketing folks,” said Jonathan Starzyk, director of marketing for Bonaventure. “I find it helpful to be involved in drafting or reviewing job descriptions to make sure they align with who we are as a firm.”

Starzyk found his own job at the company through a well-drafted job description, which used the term “marketing wizard.”

“That’s the whole point of writing job descriptions the way we do,” shared Alicia Guidotti, chief of staff & head of talent acquisition at Bonaventure. “The right person reads it and sees themself in it immediately. The wrong person is filtered out before they ever apply.” 

Multifamily marketing staff should also be involved in another task that’s key not only to attracting new residents but also to attracting employees—reputation management. This is especially important today because younger job candidates assess potential employers via social media before applying for a job. 

“In multifamily specifically, a company’s reputation with residents often influences its reputation with prospective employees,” observed James Love, vice president of marketing for Draper and Kramer. “Communities with strong resident satisfaction scores, positive online reviews and engaged social media audiences demonstrate that teams are delivering great experiences every day. Those outcomes become powerful proof points that reinforce recruitment messaging.” 

Supporting employee-referral programs

In a tough hiring environment, employee-referral programs are just as important to the success of a company as resident-referral programs are to the success of an individual community. Word of mouth is a powerful form of advertising; indeed, according to the 2021 Nielsen Trust in Advertising study, 89 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, more than any other advertising channel. So recommendations from current staff can be a powerful motivator for future employees. 

Marketing teams can help human resources promote referral programs through internal campaigns; videos; branded materials (such as lunchroom posters); and public milestone celebrations, such as company newsletter articles discussing successful referrals or reward payouts. 

As competition for talent in the multifamily industry continues to challenge human resources teams, the companies that succeed will be those that do the best job of communicating who they are as employers. Combining the efforts of marketing and HR can only enhance those efforts, improve a company’s brand and audience engagement and help attract talented employees.

Read the August 2026 issue of MHN.