Should Real Estate Recruiting Meetings Be In Person or Virtual?

Why Format Is a Recruiting Decision

The format of a recruiting meeting, in person or virtual, is usually chosen by convenience rather than by purpose. A leader accepts whichever format the candidate suggests, and a pipeline can accumulate several video calls without any in-person contact. The effect is that the candidate has learned about the team but has not experienced it, and the decision to change companies is deferred. Assigning a format to each pipeline stage removes the choice from the individual week.

The competitive context makes the pace relevant. According to the Delta Media Group 2026 Real Estate Leadership Report, which surveyed more than 100 brokerage leaders whose firms were responsible for more than two-thirds of 2025 U.S. home sales, 63% named recruiting top agents as a challenge. Real Estate News reported the same survey as showing 63% of respondents citing recruitment as their primary challenge. When most organizations in a market contact the same producing agents, the time a candidate spends in an undecided state is time during which other offers can arrive.

Format by Recruiting Stage

Each stage of a recruiting pipeline has a different purpose, and the purpose determines the better format. The first conversation is a filter, and a virtual call is the lowest-cost way to run it for both sides. The second meeting is an evaluation of the leader and the team by the candidate, and an in-person setting shows factors a camera does not. Follow up between the two is handled by text or short call. The questions that structure the first conversation are set out in What Questions Should You Ask When Interviewing a Real Estate Agent?, and the messages used to book it are covered in What Text Messages Work for Recruiting Real Estate Agents?

Real estate team leaders who want each stage of the pipeline set up with a format, a next step and a date can apply at theinnercirql.com/operators/.

The First Conversation

The first conversation is a qualifying call, not a presentation. Its three goals are to learn what the agent wants next, to confirm that she fits the team's hiring profile, and to book the second meeting before the call ends. A virtual format suits it because the stakes are low for both sides: the agent can decline privately, and the leader can end the call early without either party having traveled.

Blake Suddath described his hiring filters in a recorded interview. He names growth mindset, coachability, full-time commitment and positive energy, and said of the character requirement, "If you're a jerk, I don't want to work with you." Of the growth requirement he said, "They've got to want to grow." Most of these filters can be assessed in a call of about 25 minutes. The preparation that makes the call productive depends on a recruiting database in which each record carries a stage, a next step and a next date, as described in How Do You Build a Real Estate Recruiting Database?

The Second Meeting

The second meeting is the point at which the candidate evaluates the people. An experienced agent has already learned the leader's pitch; she is now judging whether she wants to work under the leader and alongside the team. In-person meetings expose how the leader treats other people, how the office is run and who is in it, none of which transmits reliably on video. The meeting should be short, with a single purpose: to address the candidate's objections and make an offer or a specific next-step request.

Blake Suddath, in a recorded coaching call, stated the principle this way: "Human beings leave other human beings. To be led. By other human beings." In the same call he said of a team's tools and training, "You are the value proposition." Both statements place the evaluation on the person rather than the product, which supports the use of an in-person setting for the decision stage. The scripts and responses used when the candidate raises the common objection are covered in How Do You Respond When an Agent Says They're Happy Where They Are?

The pace of agent movement sets the cost of delay. According to the National Association of REALTORS 2026 Member Profile, reported by NAR and HousingWire, the typical REALTOR reported 13 years of experience in 2025, up from 12, and 75% of members said they were very certain they would remain active for at least two more years. Experienced agents are established in their markets, and a decision to change companies usually follows a visit that confirms the people are as described. In Blake Suddath's 2025 record, 685 recruiting appointments produced 115 full-time experienced agent hires, about six appointments per hire, and half of those hires signed within eight days of their first appointment.

The Team Meeting as a Standing Invitation

A team's weekly meeting is the one in-person recruiting setting a team already has. A guest who attends sees how the team trains, recognizes results and speaks to one another, with no presentation attached. Blake Suddath has described a Tuesday 11am team meeting as his most effective recruiting invitation, saying in a recorded call, "the most success I had, for some reason, was Tuesday at 11am, and inviting people to that to go, hey, just come sit in the back, I'll save you a seat in the back, be a fly on the wall, you know?" He reported 67 guests at those meetings and presented the approach as his own experience, saying, "I'm not saying, like, it's my way or the highway, I'm just sharing."

The stated aim of his recruiting events follows the same logic: "the goal of this event is to bring the outsiders in, and the insiders closer." According to the NAR 2026 Member Profile, 21% of REALTORS worked as part of a team in 2025, with teams averaging four members, so many guests are comparing one team's meeting with another. The recruiting meeting that decides which candidates are invited is described in What Should a Weekly Recruiting Meeting Cover?

Handling Distance

Distance changes the format but not the sequence. A team sets a travel radius before it recruits, and does not recruit in areas where it has neither agents nor an office to show. Blake Suddath works from a recruit profile that keeps the candidate within a set distance of a physical office, and advises teams not to recruit in markets they cannot yet support. For the occasional candidate beyond the radius, a single visit serves as the second meeting, covering the office, the team, the leader and the offer in one half day, with the preceding conversations held on video.

A pipeline rule keeps the format from drifting. When three video calls have taken place and no in-person meeting is scheduled, the candidate is treated as stalled and reviewed at the next weekly recruiting meeting, where she receives either a dated in-person meeting, a later check-in date or closure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Real estate team leaders, broker owners and recruiters who want a recruiting process that assigns each meeting a format, a next step and a date, installed in their market, can apply with Blake Suddath and Tyler Lewis at theinnercirql.com/operators/.