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鈥淚 was very lucky to get my first job in housing,鈥� says Sarah-Daisy Bernard. 鈥淚f you have no experience, people are reluctant to take you on and train you up. Fortunately, the recruitment consultant knew me and convinced my employer to interview me. If it had hinged on my CV alone, I don鈥檛 think I鈥檇 have got anywhere.鈥�

Bernard is now a support worker in a sheltered housing scheme in Cambridge, but it took her three months to get a foothold on the housing career ladder coming in from the private sector, despite her clear enthusiasm and her willingness to take a pay cut.

Surprisingly for a sector that鈥檚 supposed to be suffering from a chronic skills shortage, Bernard鈥檚 story is not uncommon. Social landlords may say they understand the need to attract people with transferable skills from outside a dwindling pool of housing specialists, but recruitment consultants paint a very different picture. They speak of managers constrained by a lack of resources or regulatory pressures, who are unwilling or unable to take a chance on workers from outside the sector, however eager the applicants are to begin a career in housing.

鈥淲e hear of organisations claiming they can鈥檛 attract private sector people, but that鈥檚 not a problem as far as we鈥檙e concerned,鈥� says Helen Stokes, director of Morgan Hunt, which fills between 300 and 400 vacancies a week. 鈥淲e get people who are very intelligent, who鈥檝e worked for many years in management or IT earning 拢30,000 to 拢40,000, and who want to start as a housing officer on 拢9 an hour 鈥� but often our clients won鈥檛 interview people unless they鈥檝e done the same job before. It鈥檚 an ongoing issue.鈥�

A regional manager 鈥� who declined to be named 鈥� of another consultancy that supplies staff to social landlords, says associations often request that they trawl through a range of applicants, only to reject those who don鈥檛 have specific housing experience. And not only for specialist housing management roles 鈥� a candidate who had previously worked as a receptionist in an optician鈥檚 was turned down for a similar role in a housing association; and a land buyer for a private housebuilding firm was deemed inappropriate for a development officer role. 鈥淗e had very relevant experience, but they said: 鈥楴o, we want someone who鈥檚 been a development officer in another housing association,鈥欌�� says the manager.

Even those who have worked in the public sector before in similar roles can have difficulty. Liz Golding, proprietor of Brookside Housing Personnel, says she鈥檚 found it hard to place candidates with relevant public sector skills 鈥� from within the immigration advisory service, for example.

鈥淚 meet a brick wall. They say: 鈥楾hey鈥檇 be ideal if we could train them, but we can鈥檛.鈥� They鈥檇 love to do it but they鈥檝e not got the resources,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hen you鈥檝e got the Audit Commission, the Housing Corporation and numerous performance indicators to think about, this isn鈥檛 considered core business.鈥�

Dawn Decoteau, managing director of another recruitment consultant EMA Solutions Plus, echoes this: 鈥淭he housing sector is very performance driven and indicator based 鈥� you鈥檙e under pressure. If I were a manager, I鈥檇 want someone who could just come in and do the job.鈥� Decoteau adds that even graduates of housing studies courses often don鈥檛 have enough practical experience to please employers.

It isn鈥檛 impossible for those outside the sector to break in. For finance and customer service roles, private sector experience is often seen as a boon, but for housing management roles above the most junior level, teaching new staff the basics of policy and legislation can be viewed as too steep a mountain to climb. 鈥淓ntering housing from outside as a housing manager is impossible. It鈥檚 not necessarily the complexity, but there鈥檚 a lot to take in,鈥� says Shau Match, director of market consultant Trinity Public Sector.

We get managers, intelligent people on 拢40,000 a year, who want to start as a housing officer on 拢9 an hour. But they don鈥檛 even get an interview 

Helen Stokes, Morgan Hunt

Apart from entering the profession at a much lower grade, doing voluntary work is another way to gain the required experience 鈥� though even a willingness to work for nothing isn鈥檛 a guarantee. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not always good experience, you have to look closely at the work they were given to do,鈥� cautions Match. Decoteau of EMA Solutions Plus agrees: 鈥淰oluntary work may not be good enough. It depends on how much the organisation really allowed them to develop their skills.鈥�

Such routes in also discriminate against those who are unable to put their financial commitments on hold to change careers.

鈥淚 certainly had to do some quite poorly paid jobs in housing before I could get a job with a salary I could live on,鈥� confirms Sarah-Daisy Bernard. She was 23 and had amassed considerable office experience but had always been drawn to a career working in the care sector or with the homeless.

Her big break, she says, was a six-month stint at the YWCA in Islington, north London. 鈥淚 was lucky because I鈥檇 done some admin work in a healthcare setting, which gave me experience of vulnerable people, but getting your first position is difficult. In the specialist care side of housing, there is so little funding, they haven鈥檛 got time to take someone off another job to train you up. I was very keen, and that helped, if you don鈥檛 know what you want to do, it would definitely put you off.鈥�

This means that those who do make it are more committed, says Katy Crothall, manager of the housing team at Badenoch & Clark. 鈥淧eople who don鈥檛 give up, who will go and get voluntary experience or training, will succeed.

鈥淚f they can鈥檛 be bothered, you could question whether they should be working in the sector.鈥�

But Golding believes it鈥檚 exactly this kind of attitude that鈥檚 stemming the supply of new blood to the sector, and that housing isn鈥檛 necessarily any more complex than other fields. 鈥淧eople can still be a bit precious about housing; they think 鈥榠t鈥檚 our world鈥�. This is an old-fashioned, misconceived attitude,鈥� she says. 鈥淚n every other sector, that鈥檚 not the approach. It鈥檚 who鈥檚 out there, who鈥檚 sparky and ready to learn, who鈥檚 going to be an asset to the organisation?鈥�

And that鈥檚 perhaps the crux of the matter. Attracting much needed new talent to the sector means competing with a very wide variety of employers. Resources may be scarce and regulators fierce, but housing providers have no choice but to find ways of training new staff 鈥� because if they don鈥檛, other organisations will.