It’s a good time to be a Recruiter….or an extremely frustrating one, depending on how you look at it.
These past several months have seen lots of changes in our industry. Draper & Kramer sold to New American Funding, Guild Mortgage completed 3 notable acquisitions in 2023 (Cherry Creek Mortgage, Legacy Mortgage and First Centennial Mortgage). Additionally, CMG acquired Homebridge Financial, boosting its existing national footprint. Housing Wire reported 62 mergers, acquisitions and exits in 2023.
Specifically, the most recent shakeup was at Caliber Home Loans (New Rez). The lender abruptly informed much of its leadership team that they were no longer needed. Obviously, this created an absolute feeding frenzy among recruiters and competitors. One Caliber leader told me they had received 78 LinkedIn in mails, 21 Recruiter calls and 14 calls from competitor firms – in one day. As you can imagine, trying to connect with anyone exiting Caliber has been a challenge. In particular, this can be frustrating for a Recruiter trying to communicate and showcase strong opportunities. One of my clients, also trying to reach out to Caliber managers without much success, said it very well. “Right now, all these calls and emails have just become noise. It wouldn’t matter if I left a message saying I had a million dollar scratch off ticket for them and all they had to do was scratch it….I still don’t think I’d get a return call. They’re just tuning it out.”
Much of the old Caliber crew have joined OneTrust Home Loans out of San Diego. This includes James Hecht, now OneTrust’s new CEO.
As we move into an uncertain new year, I’m sure we will continue to see big changes. Right now, this seems to be the only constant in our industry.
