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Many applicants fail to secure positions because their lack of housing experience is seen by managers to be an insuperable barrier. Although not all social landlords are guilty of judging applicants in this way, those who are make recruitment worse for the whole sector. By taking on only those with a housing background, the sector seems less approachable to the outside world. Further, such a policy generates a reliance on poaching staff from other associations, transferring vacancies to other registered social landlords.

To a certain extent, it is easy to sympathise with this approach. Why take on somebody who needs months of training and mentoring before they become an asset to your team? But this is an incredibly short-sighted view and raises the question how many potentially outstanding housing staff have been rejected because they don’t currently work in the sector?

When there are so many vacancies does it really make sense to rule out candidates just because they lack a housing background? Of course it takes more time for someone new to the sector to learn the job – as a former temporary housing officer myself, I have personal experience of the problem – but these difficulties shouldn’t be exaggerated. Housing is a comparatively complex sector, but with some good mentoring and proper training, good recruits should be fully up and running within four months.

During this period the new recruit’s manager will have to allocate time to their training, thereby not addressing other calls on their time, but after all, balancing priorities is what managers do. There is never a good time to dedicate an hour or more a day to a new member of staff, but if we want to recruit the best long-term prospects, managers are going to have to find the time. One result of this may be an improvement in managers’ own skills.

There is never a good time to give an hour a day to a new member of staff, but to recruit the best, we have to make the time

Plainly, this is not the only factor under consideration, but the benefits of bringing in motivated and intelligent staff from outside can in the longer term outweigh the direct experience of existing housing staff. The first group just needs to be managed.

We are doing ourselves and our tenants a disservice if we fail to recruit the best people. So the next time you get an application from someone outside the sector, think what you could gain.