If you are responsible for commercial real estate hiring in Canada, the market shift happening right now has a direct impact on who you should be hiring.
According to Colliers International, the national office vacancy rate dropped to 13.6% in Q1 2026, down one percentage point year-over-year, one of the most significant improvements since the pandemic. Industrial vacancy fell at the same time, the first time both moved together since 2020. Capital is coming back. Occupier urgency is building. The market has turned.
But here is what is not keeping pace: the way most firms are thinking about hiring.
Commercial Real Estate Talent Looked Very Different When the Market Was Struggling
The CRE professionals who performed well between 2020 and 2024 were doing genuinely hard work.
Between 2020 and 2024, the people who performed were the ones who could hold a portfolio together under pressure. They kept tenants in place when they wanted out, renegotiated leases in difficult conversations, and managed tight budgets while values wobbled.
They protected relationships when there was not much good news to share.
The commercial real estate professionals who excelled were patient, steady, relationship-first. That profile made a lot of sense for that moment, and the people who did that work well deserve credit for it. Keeping a portfolio intact through those years was not easy.
The thing is, those are not the same skills that will drive performance in the market ahead. And most commercial real estate firms are still hiring as if they are.
A Recovering Commercial Real Estate Market Needs a Different Kind of Player
Recovery work pulls in the opposite direction.
The opportunity now is in new tenant acquisition and not renewals. Active conversion is key, not maintenance. Repositioning assets as values stabilize and capital comes back to the table.
For commercial leasing professionals, that is a meaningful shift. Someone who spent four years protecting existing relationships has valuable experience, but closing new tenants in a more competitive environment requires a different approach entirely. It requires different pipeline discipline, different negotiation posture, different tolerance for urgency and rejection.
Asset managers are facing a similar pivot. Cap rates have peaked and value-add opportunities are opening up again. The underwriting work that sat dormant for a few years is back, and it requires people who can look forward instead of managing what is already in front of them.
For operations leaders, the recovery brings volume for the first time in years. Teams that ran lean by necessity now need to grow, and scaling quickly without losing quality is harder than most expect. It is a skill that has not been tested much lately, which makes it easy to overlook in a hiring process.
Where Canadian Real Estate Hiring Is Going Sideways Now
The most common mistake starts early by writing a job description for the last cycle. The required experience, listed duties, interview questions, all of it is pointing to a market that has already passed.
You end up with a strong candidate for 2022 starting in 2026.
Promoting from within is another area where firms can get caught. We can all agree that internal candidates have real advantages because they know the portfolio, the culture and the people.
But there is an honest conversation that needs to happen about whether the skills that worked in a holding environment actually translate to a growth one. Sometimes they do. But sometimes there is a gap, and it is much better to identify that before the hire than 12 months after.
Hiring on relationships alone is also worth watching. Canadian commercial real estate is a small world and relationships will always matter. But in a recovery, execution is what actually moves the needle.
Being well-liked in the industry is not the same thing as being the right person for this particular moment.
This is What Strong Commercial Real Estate Hiring in Canada Looks Like in Practice
The interview process needs to reflect the market you are hiring for, not the one you just came out of.
For leasing roles, ask about the last new tenant they closed. Not a renewal, but a new one. Ask about how they identified the prospect, how they built the relationship from scratch, how they handled competition and got to yes. The answer tells you a lot about whether they have the skills this market is about to demand.
For asset management and portfolio roles, look for people who have underwritten through a period of real change, not just managed through stability. Ask how their view of the market has shifted in the last year and what they actually did differently because of it. Vague answers to that question are worth taking seriously as a signal.
For operations, whether you are hiring a Property Manager, Regional Property Manager, or Director of Operations, look for people who have built teams, not just run them. Did they have processes designed for growth or did they just optimized for efficiency? The operations leader you need for the next two years is a different profile than the one you needed for the last four.”
One question worth asking every commercial real estate candidate regardless of role: what changed in your market over the last 12 months and what did you do about it? The specificity of the answer is usually very telling.
The Cost of Getting Hiring Wrong in a Recovering Market
A hiring mistake in a slow market is painful but there is usually time to absorb it because the pace is slower and there is room to course-correct.
But in a recovery, that buffer shrinks. Decisions made now, across leasing, asset management, property management, and operations, will shape how well your firm is positioned for the next two to three years.
Commercial real estate hiring in Canada is already picking up. The candidates who have been sitting on the sidelines are getting calls. The firms moving decisively are getting access to the best people.
The companies waiting for more certainty before they hire are going to find themselves competing for whoever is left.
The firms that build the right teams at the start of a growth phase carry that advantage forward. The ones that hire for the last cycle spend the next 18 months catching up while the market moves without them.
The recovery is here. The question is whether your next hire is built for it.
The market is moving. Is your hiring?
If you are building or repositioning a leasing, asset management, or property management team in Canada right now, Talent IQ can help you find the right people for this moment, not the last one.
