How to Hire Mortgage Brokers for Your Firm
What brokers actually look for, where to find them, how to structure the deal, and the onboarding that keeps good people.
What do mortgage brokers actually look for in a firm?
I've asked every broker who's joined me this question, and the answer is always some version of the same thing: they want clients, and they want to be left alone to do the job properly.
When I first started building Bluewave, brokers came to me for support and training. They'd worked in employed teams their whole careers and wanted to make the jump to self-employed, but needed a helping hand to get there. That's still a draw, but the biggest pull now is something different. We run ads on social media and book appointments directly into brokers' diaries. That changes the conversation completely. A broker doesn't have to wonder where the next client is coming from.
Beyond appointments, the things that matter are:
- Flexibility. They went self-employed for a reason. Some want work-life balance, others want to earn as much as they physically can. Both types need to control their own diary and block out the hours they don't want to work.
- No targets and no monthly fees. The moment you start penalising a broker for not hitting a monthly income threshold, you've killed the reason they went self-employed in the first place.
- Fair commission splits. They'll compare you to every other firm they talk to. If you're taking a huge percentage and not providing much in return, they'll find somewhere that does.
- Compliance handled for them. Nobody got into mortgage broking because they love compliance paperwork. If you can take that off their plate (or most of it), that's a genuine selling point.
- A brand they're happy to sit behind. Brokers want to work under a name with a decent reputation. Google reviews, a proper website, a professional image. It makes their conversations with clients easier.
The question you need to answer before you recruit anyone is: what can I offer that will make a broker want to join me over going solo or joining someone else? If the honest answer is "not much", fix that first.
Where do you find mortgage advisers to hire?
I've tried most of the channels and the pattern is clear. Word of mouth is by far the strongest, and it compounds over time.
- Word of mouth and mutual broker contacts. This is where my best hires have come from. Brokers talk. If your existing team is happy, they'll mention you when someone asks "know any firms looking for advisers?" You can't fake this one. It comes from being good to work with.
- Your network's recruitment drive. If you're an appointed representative under a network like HL Partnership, they often run recruitment campaigns and can introduce brokers who are already FCA-ready and looking for a home.
- Mortgage social media groups. There are active Facebook and LinkedIn groups where brokers discuss everything from lender criteria to career moves. A well-written post explaining what you actually offer (not a generic "we're hiring!") gets attention.
- LinkedIn. Works well for reaching employed brokers who might be considering the jump to self-employed. Don't cold-message with a sales pitch. Start a conversation.
- Specialist recruitment agencies. Firms like Fram Search and Pure Resourcing know the mortgage market. They'll charge 15-20% of salary equivalent, so it's not cheap, but they can surface experienced advisers you wouldn't reach otherwise.
One thing I'd say: don't go for volume. You're not filling a call centre. One good, experienced broker who fits your firm is worth more than three who don't convert or leave after six months.
How should you structure the deal?
My personal view is to always take on self-employed brokers who have already achieved Competent Adviser Status at a previous firm. They can advise from day one, and you avoid a long supervision period. Here's how the deal works at Bluewave:
- All brokers are self-employed. No PAYE, no employer NI, and the broker gets the flexibility they came for.
- On appointments I provide: commission is 50/50 on what I receive after network deductions. The broker gets half, I get half. I'm covering the ad spend, the compliance, the tech.
- On business they generate themselves: 75/25 in what I receive. Their client, their effort, so they keep the lion's share.
- I cover network fees and CRM costs. The broker shouldn't be paying for the tools they need to do the job.
- All brokers work under the Bluewave brand. One brand, one reputation, one set of reviews. Simpler for the client and stronger for everyone.
- No targets and no monthly fees. A broker blocks the times in their diary they don't want to work. If they want to take a Wednesday off, they take a Wednesday off.
The split you offer has to make sense for both sides. If you're providing appointments, covering costs and handling compliance, a 50/50 on those appointments is fair. If you're taking 50% but not providing clients and not covering costs, you'll struggle to keep anyone.
How do you onboard a new broker without overwhelming them?
I only take on experienced advisers, so the "how to be a mortgage broker" bit is already done. But every firm does things differently, and that transition matters more than people think.
The biggest challenge I see is brokers who've spent years doing face-to-face meetings with warm referrals. Moving to fully remote telephone appointments from social media leads is a different skill. The client is colder, the rapport has to be built faster, and the whole rhythm changes. If you don't address that head-on, you'll watch a perfectly good broker struggle and wonder why.
Here's what onboarding looks like at Bluewave:
- Week one: network compliance training. Because we're under HL Partnership, they run about a week of online video training covering systems, case packaging and compliance standards. This is about learning how this network wants things done, not learning how to advise.
- Initial case checks. The first three mortgage and protection submissions are fully checked by our dedicated case checker and compliance manager. After that, checks become periodic to make sure standards hold.
- Time with me. The first few weeks involve a lot of direct time together. Not hand-holding on the mortgage side (they already know how to do the job), but explaining how we do things at Bluewave. How we run appointments, what converts, the two-appointment process we use. Every firm has its own way, and that context matters.
Having the network handle compliance is a huge weight off my shoulders. It means I can spend my time on the firm and the brokers themselves, rather than drowning in regulatory paperwork.
How many appointments should you give a new broker?
This is where I see firms get it wrong constantly. A new broker comes off their training course buzzing, wanting three appointments a day, and the firm obliges because they want to show a return quickly. It backfires.
These are new systems, new compliance expectations and a new way of working. We start super slow.
- Drip-feed one appointment at a time. The broker takes the appointment. If it converts to a sale, we stop new appointments so they can focus entirely on submitting that case without distractions.
- Wait for the case to be submitted and signed off by compliance before booking the next one in.
- Gradually increase the appointment volume to a level that suits the individual broker. Some will want to go faster than others.
The last thing you want is cases piling up half-done. There will be meetings with compliance, possible changes on the case, lender queries. Each of those needs proper attention. Rushing creates problems that take longer to fix than doing it right the first time.
Once a broker is settled, the rhythm looks like this. We focus on remortgage business, so a case from application to completion can go through in about four weeks (assuming the client's rate is already up), then possibly a few more weeks to get paid. If the appointments are good, a broker may only need four or five meetings a week to convert enough into sales.
We aim for experienced brokers to be picking up five to eight mortgage appointments per week once they're fully up to speed. We're also trialling life insurance and income protection appointments booked into diaries, which means brokers can pick the appointment types that play to their strengths and maximise their income.
We tell every broker upfront: realistically, you may not earn much for the first three months, and it can take six months to build a regular pipeline of business. Being honest about that timeline is far better than overpromising and watching someone get frustrated and leave.
How do you keep brokers once they've joined?
Retention is simpler than people make it. Brokers stay when they're earning and when they enjoy the work. They leave when one of those breaks.
What I've found is that different brokers want different things, and you have to see that early:
- The money-driven broker wants good appointments that convert. They'll work all hours. Give them volume, good quality leads and stay out of their way.
- The work-life balance broker doesn't want targets. They want to earn enough and still have time for family and the things they enjoy. Don't pressure them into doing more than they want.
As long as you can identify what each broker wants and deliver it, they'll stick around. The moment you try to force a work-life balance broker into targets, or leave a driven broker without enough appointments, you'll lose them.
The work environment matters too. If your brokers dread picking up the phone because the firm culture is off, or because they're constantly chasing you for support, the money alone won't keep them. Be easy to work with, pay on time, and sort problems quickly when they come up.
What mistakes do firms make when recruiting brokers?
The single biggest one: promising what you can't deliver.
Not a week goes by that I hear from brokers where their current firm offered them "as many leads as they needed" to get them through the door. Then after they started, it suddenly went dry. Now they're expected to generate their own business with no support. That broker will leave, and they'll tell every other broker they know exactly why.
Or worse: some firms hand out 200 names and phone numbers a month and expect the broker to cold-call every one of them. If that's your lead proposition, the broker didn't leave their old job to work in a call centre.
Other mistakes I see regularly:
- Taking too high a commission split without providing enough in return. If you're taking 40-50% and the broker is generating their own clients, paying their own fees and handling their own compliance, they'll eventually ask what they're paying you for.
- Overloading new brokers with appointments too early. Files pile up, quality drops, compliance flags cases, and the broker burns out. Slow and steady wins.
- Not being upfront about the earning timeline. If you let a broker believe they'll be earning from month one and reality hits at month three, you've built resentment that's hard to undo.
- Hiring for quantity over quality. Five average brokers who don't convert will cost you more in wasted appointments and reputation damage than two good ones who do.
Build a proposition that's genuinely good for both sides. Be honest about what you can and can't provide. And if you're going to promise leads, make sure you can actually deliver them. (That's the reason I built MortgagesBooked: so the appointment supply is consistent and doesn't depend on me personally running ads late at night.)
Growing a brokerage by hiring brokers is one of the most rewarding things I've done, and one of the hardest to get right. The proposition matters far more than the recruitment strategy. Get the offer right and good people find you. If you want to see how booked appointments work as part of a firm's proposition to brokers, the free preview shows this week's appointments. And if you're earlier in the journey and still building your own client base, I wrote up how to get mortgage clients covering every channel from referrals to paid ads.