An agent who fails onboarding was failed earlier than that.

When recruitment only checks for confidence, onboarding inherits a person who was never tested on the hard part of the job, and the first month is where that shows.

The forms can be learned. A new agent can be taught the mandate form, the FICA checklist and the order in which a sale moves from an offer to purchase to registration in the Deeds Office, and most people pick that up in a few weeks. What cannot be taught in a fortnight is the nerve to tell an owner, kindly and plainly, that the asking price is too high and the house will sit if it stays there. That conversation is half the work, and it is the half an interview rarely tests.

Interviews reward what is easy to see across a desk. A warm phone manner and a firm handshake get noticed, so they get weighed heavily. Whether someone can hold a position while a seller gets upset is harder to see, so nobody asks. Then the principal sets a listing target, watches the newcomer stall, and writes it down as a failed onboarding. If new agents keep leaving at the same point, the cause probably sits in the list of questions nobody put to them before the contract was signed.