As a real estate agent, you know the industry is fast paced and always evolving. How you work with buyers or sellers today may be quite different than it was even a few short years ago.
Buyers and sellers expect their agent to be competent in the services they provide, be professional, demonstrate high ethical standards, and comply with the law.
In 2021, the Real Estate Regulators of Canada (RERC) developed competency profiles to enhance professional and competency standards in real estate for salespersons and brokers. The report and the profiles give the industry an opportunity to set clear and consistent guidelines across the country.
Each provincial regulator uses the profiles to underpin their education approach and we encourage registrants to use them to support their own training and development.
A competency is the capability of a member of a profession to apply or use a set of related skills, knowledge and behaviours required to successfully perform critical work functions or tasks in a defined work setting at an acceptable standard. The standard is typically set by the profession as a whole and its governing body.
A competency profile is the collection of relevant competencies needed by a person to perform in a particular profession. It can be viewed as a standard for the level of performance required in that profession. In a sense, competency profiles summarize the capabilities that are important and, when viewed together, contribute to the overall success one may experience in a profession.
The Real Estate Regulators of Canada (RERC), on behalf of real estate regulators across Canada, partnered with CamProf Inc, a leading international consultancy in skills development, professional and vocational training, and competency standards, to develop Canada-wide competency profiles for real estate professionals. Competency profiles were developed for both salespeople – those individuals registered or licensed to trade in real estate – and brokers – those registered or licensed to manage a brokerage.
CamProf Inc. worked with a group of dedicated salespersons and brokers from across Canada, including members of RECO’s Education Advisory Committee. They, along with professionals from across the country, contributed to identify the competencies necessary to succeed in trading in real estate. Draft profiles were then circulated to salespersons and brokers nationwide to validate their accuracy. We thank those who took the time to participate in the validation process.
RERC is a collaborative forum that strives to enhance regulatory effectiveness by helping its members achieve and sustain regulatory excellence. RECO is a member of RERC.
The profiles for salespeople and brokers were developed to provide a common framework allowing regulators, educators, individual practitioners and employers across the country to work together to create a common view of terminology, definitions, expectations, goals, learning objectives, qualifications, development opportunities, and training.
Having Canada-wide recognized competency profiles for real estate professionals enables all stakeholders in the profession to develop education and training programs to meet common standards, further aligning the skills, knowledge and behaviours that are expected by today’s buyers and sellers across the country.
The advantage is strengthening labour mobility from province to province. Regardless of jurisdiction, all professionals working in real estate across Canada will leverage the same competency profiles.
The profiles enable more focused self-reflection by real estate professionals as they consider personal development and/or career planning to advance their standing in the profession. By understanding the skills, knowledge, and behaviours associated with success in the profession, there is now something tangible to align with when planning for self-development.
The profiles enable more meaningful discussions related to performance. By understanding the skills, knowledge, and behaviours associated with success in the profession, all parties will have a common “language” or “currency” of performance, knowledge and skills to draw from and plan against.
The established competency profiles enable more targeted enhancements and/or additions to professional development programming that typically falls outside RECO’s mandate of consumer protection. This enables the sector to focus on a broader range of skills, knowledge, and behaviours not directly tied to legislative compliance, that are still important for success in the profession.
