Before approaching potential employers:

• Take a drive around the area you are considering working in.
• Check out which agents have the most prominent signage.
• Check out which have the most prominent offices.
• Read the advertising for agents in your vicinity - local paper, colour magazine, internet, etc.
• What do the signs, window displays and advertising tell you about the agent's effectiveness in the area?

Doesn't this sound like the recipe for deciding which office to buy, sell or rent through?

Read on . . .

• Which offices in the area appear to have a high turnover of salespeople?
• Which offices have a more stable work force?
• If a real estate agency doesn't advertise the names of its staff, what does this tell you about the amount of control the employer likes to have versus the freedom they are prepared to give to his or her employees?
• Do you want to be anonymous, or would you like to develop your own identity?
• Make contact with some current (and former) employees of these offices.
• Ask them if they'd be prepared to talk to you about how they find industry.  Offer to buy them a coffee in return for a chat.
• Expect that some will be prepared to talk to you, some will not.  Use the knockbacks as practice at getting an appointment and learning to take the "no's".
• In addition to general Industry questions, ask questions about what their office is like to work for, why they've stayed (or why they left), etc.