Interview

Ms. Roach made it extremely clear that she “absolutely loves working with my staff” and that is mostly because they “are such a family oriented office, and it makes our work that much easier”. Ms. Roach explains that another thing she loves about her job is the residents and the opportunity to relate to them all individually. She emphasized the fact that student housing is not an easy job a lot of work but it pays off. The most challenging aspect for her however is trying to get a good feel for the needs and wants of the residents. Sometimes “the residents are not 100% clear on what they want and do not do a great job in communication making it hard for us to provide, and this is hard for me”. However, she does a great job in doing this no matter how difficult the task at hand is proven to be.

Advice on how to prepare for a career in property management.

Some advice that Ms. Roach gave me in entering into the career of property management was the get started as soon as possible. Experience is “priceless” she stated, and you can work yourself up the chain of command much faster than normal. Furthermore, she said stick with the same company as long as you can. I discussed with her some of the things we learned in class like how companies look inward first to find employees before the look outward. She told me that she could not have agreed more and this was one hundred percent true.

In the line of work of student housing it is very fast paced and detail oriented. There is not too much room for error, so being accurate and being able to multi-task are qualities one must possess. It’s such a wonderful experience to have, and can lead you to many great opportunities.

Ms. Roach told me, in closing of our conversation, that is one of the things that helps her not to get worn out from her job is to just be positive. No matter what situation you are put into, if you are positive it contagious and others will be to. When you put your team is a good mood and assure them that they are capable, your results will double. She claims to never have had this theory proven wrong. That advice I know is something that I will carry with me into my future.

Summary

In our interview I discovered that a Ms. Roach does a significant amount of business writing. She claims that “it is a major part of my duties. Between letters being sent to vendors, guarantors, and our corporate office, I need to be very professional and accurate”.

I extremely enjoyed and benefited from my interview with Rachael Roach. With the help of Ms. Roach, I now have a better understanding of what a career in student housing entails. Until I had an opportunity to meet with her I was not fully aware of how detailed everything is and how error is unacceptable. Everything I learned about student housing from Ms. Roach greatly intrigues me to consider a future career in leasing and student housing.

Through the interview I know I am capable of going into this profession because I am extremely comfortable with people and love being in the atmosphere of customer service. I believe I have the work ethic to do error free work, put in the time, and work as hard as need be to get the task at hand done. I know these are attributes for almost all jobs but when you around customers and under their observation at all times it is even more important. That is why I know I will succeed in everything I do, but in the line of work I am capable of going above and beyond being “successful.”