About Rex

Real estate is worth $280 trillion, but technology in this industry is often archaic or nonexistent. Rex aims to solve this through ten diversified initiatives, from traditional property management (ResProp) to technology and private equity ventures.

Mike Walsh, VP of Talent Acquisition, faced unique hiring challenges across Rex's varied businesses. "We can expect turnover of around 300 people annually, plus hiring for new growth," explains Mike. With property management roles receiving 75-100 applications weekly, the team needed a solution that could handle high-volume hiring while maintaining candidate engagement.

The challenge: High-volume hiring with limited tools

Rex faced several critical challenges in their recruiting efforts. With such high application volumes, "you might talk to the first 20, and now you have 80-120 people who you haven't followed up with," explains Mike.

Their previous tech stack couldn't keep up. While the team had basic sourcing features, they lacked the capabilities for outreach campaigns and sequences. Their previous sourcing tool often provided incorrect contact information, making sourcing unreliable. “More often than not, their contact information was incorrect, so it wasn't a very reliable method of creating a sequence from a sourcing perspective,” says Mike. 

Communication was particularly challenging for ResProp's maintenance and operations roles. "They're out on the field or on-site. They're not like IT workers who are on their computer for the majority of the day. They use text messaging more than email," says Mike. Without native SMS capabilities, engaging these candidates was difficult.  Because email is not the most efficient way to reach these candidates, Mike knew he needed an ATS that supported SMS messaging.

Finally, the fragmented tech stack – separate tools for ATS, SMS, and reporting – created inefficiencies and rising costs. 

Consolidating 3+ tools for better efficiency and cost-savings

Rex's move to Gem consolidated their recruiting tools into a single platform. 

By consolidating their ATS, SMS, and reporting tools into Gem's unified platform, Rex's TA team gained additional capabilities like CRM and AI sourcing while maintaining their existing technology spend. This move helped them avoid at least $15,000 in additional costs, as other sourcing tools they evaluated charged a minimum of $6,000 per user annually.

Streamlining candidate engagement

“The main feature I am most excited about in Gem is having a robust CRM that will allow us to create and use both hiring campaigns and nurture campaigns,” says Mike. And since rolling out Gem in November 2024, he has already scored a few success stories. For a Senior Property Accountant role, his team created a campaign targeting past applicants stored in their project. "The day the role opened, we created a campaign to send to people we had previously reviewed and placed into a project. We messaged the group of past candidates and started receiving responses the next day. We made our hire in 15 days. Our second hire for this team happened in 21 days," shares Mike.

The platform proved especially valuable for high-volume hiring. "Gem allows us to select all candidates and send a nurture campaign," explains Mike. "We can say, 'Hey, we received your resume. We've had a lot of interest in this opening. We're interviewing people right now. We'll follow up with you for future positions.'" 

Expediting application review

Because Rex is hiring at a high volume, application review needs to be as efficient as possible. With Gem’s AI-powered application review, Mike says the process is much smoother than their previous ATS, allowing them to get through more applications in a shorter period of time. Thanks to Gem’s AI-assisted keyword search that pulls required skills from the job description, the team can quickly sift through applications to find the best matches. Mike also appreciates that AI-powered app review is accessible right from the home page where he can quickly filter and surface the top applicants.

Automated reporting and executive insights

Mike often fields requests from team leaders and other stakeholders about Rex’s hiring pipelines. Gem offered superior reporting compared to their previous ATS and did not require additional manipulation in Excel. He can access dashboards and filter the data accordingly so it is suitable for the right audience. “I can do deep dives into data right away when the COO asks,” says Mike. 

Rex’s TA team also has ambitious hiring goals set for the organization. To put a finer point on it, they’re aiming to reach a 95% staff rate for all critical roles. And now Mike can see how they’re doing at a glance by viewing their Gem dashboard. 

Rex has confidence that Gem is the right partner to power their next phase of growth

As a seasoned TA leader with over a decade of experience, Mike has worked with numerous vendors and tools over the years. He says the Gem team stands out for their communication and openness to feedback. “The Gem team has been absolutely fantastic during our implementation. They set up a Slack channel that has allowed us to communicate any issues we have faced. It provided us a place to also ask general questions where we would receive fast responses. We have been able to communicate and meet with the product team to provide feedback and help guide the future direction of the product that serves our needs and use cases well.”