The effect of job shadowing on recruiting students to academic programs in property management

ABSTRACT

There has been a growing talent shortage among property management professionals. University students studying residential property management (RPM) are in high demand, and often receive multiple job offers even before graduation. These university RPM programs must find a sustainable way to recruit students to their academic programs to continue to fill the growing number of openings in the property management profession. In the Introduction to Residential Property Management course at Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana), students are required to complete a job shadowing assignment with a property management professional, to explore the many career opportunities. This exploratory study examined the effect of the job shadowing assignment on students’ decision to declare one of the academic options in the RPM Program. Results indicated that students’ connection to the Ball State RPM Program increased after taking Introduction to Residential Property Management. However, the job shadowing assignment was not the sole reason for students declaring one of the RPM academic program options.

KEYWORDS:

• Job shadowing
• housing education
• property management
• student recruitment
• career exploration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ronald Harrington

Ronald Harrington, MA, CAM, served as the Residential Property Management graduate assistant during the time this research was conducted.

Carla Earhart

Carla Earhart, PhD, CFCS, is Professor of Residential Property Management in the Department of Management, Miller College of Business, at Ball State University in Muncie, IN.