It all started with a simple idea: Increase the number of people who consider residential property management (RPM) as a career.

As part of the NAAEI NOW Capital Campaign, the NAA Education Institute conducted research, developed a brand identity and, in January 2015, launched the campaign website, RPMcareers.org.

RPMcareers.org is part of the ApartmentCareers.com network, and we have been able to leverage the existing job seeker database and traffic and enhance traffic with our focused marketing efforts.

Now, less than six months in, we've got some results to report.

The Good News

• Through digital advertising on search engines, such as Google and Bing, as well as advertising on Facebook, more than 29,000 potential candidates have visited RPMcareers.org.

• Since launching the RPM Careers Facebook page in February, the campaign has reached more than 3.9 million people on Facebook. 

• We have added over 25,000 new registered job seekers through the ApartmentCareers network, bringing the total of new registered job seekers to more than 265,000 since 2013.

The Bad News

Traffic outpaces the number of advertised career opportunities. From January through March of 2015, there were over 300,000 visits to our career center network, but only 3,000 new job opportunities were posted.

You can help change that. In addition to posting your available positions through our local apartment associations, consider posting or sending a feed of your company's open jobs to RPMcareers.org. Your jobs will be promoted on the ApartmentCareers network, which has a national audience of more than 100,000 visitors per month. 

To do this, just go to careers.naahq.org/employers and put your cursor on "Your Account" to see the drop-down menu. If you already have an account on RPMcareers or ApartmentCareers, sign in and post. If you're visiting the site for the first time, it takes just a few minutes to sign up.

Maureen Lambe, CAE, is Executive Vice President of the NAA Education Institute.