By Nick Carman, Founder, Velop
In today’s real estate market, a recruiter’s most valuable work happens after the longlist is built. Historically, recruiters and head hunters would parade their black book of contacts as a reason to hire them. Today is different, technology, Linkedin and the market has taken the spotlight from this service. Deal flow is uneven, senior leaders are staying put, and talented people at every level are open to a conversation. For developers and investors in Miami and across South Florida, that means more qualified candidates per role than ever, and a higher risk of hiring the wrong one.
Everyone takes the call
I have spent 20 years hiring in real estate and interviewed more than 5,000 professionals. I can’t remember a market where so many people were willing to talk.
The reasons are structural. RCLCO’s 2026 C-Suite Outlook describes firms in a period of “strategic stasis,” prioritizing retention of existing leadership while few recruit externally. On CBRE’s third-quarter 2026 earnings call, executives said higher rates were forcing deals to be repriced, delayed or refinanced. Senior leaders aren’t moving, so the rising stars and middle managers beneath them are stuck.
Whether it’s a principal or someone two years out of school, everyone has a frustration they hope I can solve: a more adventurous investor, more capital, a board that backs them, more projects, a real path to promotion, swap a micro-manager for a mentor.
The two halves of a recruiter’s job
My work has always balanced attraction and assessment. Attraction means mapping the market: competitors, peers, and the best performers in comparable companies across geographies, until I have 50 to 100 names and know nobody is missing. Assessment means turning that longlist into a recommendation. Sometimes that’s four or five people. Sometimes it’s one.
When attraction gets easy, assessment gets harder. When hiring, these decisions deserve more due diligence than instinct.
A Miami search with 78 credible candidates
Miami is the most active branded residence market in the country. According to Savills, the city now has more than 70 branded condo buildings completed or in the pipeline, and Haute Living counts over $15 billion in luxury new construction underway across the tri-county region.
We were recently retained to hire a VP or SVP of Development for a Miami developer of premium condos and branded residences. The client had strong in-house design and construction teams, so prior condo experience wasn’t essential. They needed a development leader who could tell the story of a project to investors and sales teams, quarterbacking the teams. A much more transferable skill leading to a national search.
That opened the door to talented people in multifamily, industrial, mixed-use and hospitality, and many saw it as a lifeline. Even after filtering rigorously on proximity to the numbers, track record on past projects, tenure and design credentials, our longlist held 78 people.
No client can interview 78 candidates. Understanding how each person thought, led and liked to be led, before a single interview, is what let us confidently recommend a shortlist of four.
The real hiring risk is behavior
A skills mismatch is the easiest risk to catch. Even a superficial interview process will surface it. The risk that slips through all but the most detailed processes is culture and behavioral fit:
- How does this person react under stress?
- How do they get to the right answer?
- When do they ask for help?
- What environment do they need to thrive?
Why we assess at the start
On every retained search, we run personality and cognitive assessments at the beginning of the process. By the time a hiring manager meets the shortlist, they already know how each candidate thinks, how they’re likely to handle pressure, and whether they’ll fit the way the team really works. Interviews then go deeper, faster.
In a market where everyone wants to move, the most useful thing a recruiter can do is protect you from the wrong hire.
If you’re hiring investment, development or construction leaders in Miami or along the East Coast, talk to Velop about how we assess candidates before the first interview.
Frequently asked questions
How do you assess culture fit when hiring in real estate? At Velop, every retained search uses personality and cognitive assessments before interviews begin. Hiring managers receive insight into how each candidate thinks, leads and prefers to be led alongside their track record.
How many candidates should a real estate executive search present? It depends on the role. We typically map 50 to 100 people, then recommend a shortlist of three to five. Occasionally the right answer is one.
What makes hiring for Miami branded residence developers different? The market is highly active and attracts strong candidates from adjacent asset classes. That widens the talent pool, which makes structured assessment of behavior and fit more important than in narrower searches.
About the author
Nick Carman is the founder of Velop, a specialist real estate executive search firm that hires rising stars and future leaders for real estate investors and developers along the US East Coast, with a focus on Miami and South Florida. He has 20 years of experience in real estate recruitment and has interviewed more than 5,000 professionals. Velop uses personality and cognitive assessments at the start of every retained search to give clients a clearer view of culture fit and potential.