Assistant Super who wants to be a full-time Super?

It's a tough time for that -- our building had a live-out super for about two months before he figured he could make more money (in this market, anyway) as a contractor renovating bathrooms. Maybe try to share with another building on your block?

Thanks, there unfortunately aren't a lot of residential units on our block but that's not a bad idea. I'll ask around.

Is there a supers' network or anything that people are aware of? We've interviewed dozens of candidates but it seems like the only people searching job postings are the very ones that were let go for some reason. I figured it might be better to try to find someone who wanted to make the jump to a full-time from assistant position or maybe even someone moving from a smaller building to a larger one (our building has 40+ units).

We're just struggling to find quality candidates and our lack of a super's unit isn't helping.

Also since your building has more than nine units I believe you'd need a super who lives within 200 feet of the building per City code.

I think that law is for a janitor and not a super. Also as long as your building has janitorial services available (i.e. through a service) it satisfies the law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/realestate/01qa2.html

Does anybody here know of a link to the basic contract for union building staff?

Maybe something here is what you're looking for?
https://www.seiu32bj.org/contract-page/#RAB-Resident-Managers-and-Superintendent-Agreement1

Just to circle back to the original purpose of this thread, there's no network or association of supers that anyone's aware of?

There's the union, 32-BJ

Chelseasupersearcher,

Some one with an existing job doesn't get much of an upgrade without live-in housing. All the salaries are union equivalent now due to new law a couple of years back. Never heard of Assistant Super position. There are supers (resident managers), handymans, doorman, porters positions etc from what I have seen.

So you will need to compromise somewhere. Also, what happened to your old super? And managing agent is supposed to help you find you a super.

Another incompetent managing agent. Qu'elle surprise

300_mercer, I totally agree that someone who is currently a super doesn't get an upgrade by moving to a position where there is no apartment for him. That's why I was reaching out to find an assistant super who would be interested in taking on a super position rather than continuing as an assistant super. An assistant super already doesn't have a live-in position and we could offer them increased last as well as an increase in responsibility and title.

As for a management company helping out with the process, their contributions to the process have been posting on LinkedIn and indeed and doing some minimal resume filtering. The actual candidates have left a lot to be desired.

I'm hoping to find a way of searching for a candidate rather than having one come to us because the selection bias of an out of work super is pretty bad.

Seems like there's no mechanism to find assistant supers. I'll try reaching out to 32-BJ but would love to hear from anyone who might know how to find an assistant super looking to make the jump to a full super position.

How much more $S (salaries are directed by law now unless you want to lose primary residence tax abatement)? At that pay level, that is the most important.

"An assistant super already doesn't have a live-in position and we could offer them increased last as well as an increase in responsibility and title."

@Chelsea..: "their contributions to the process have been posting on LinkedIn..."

Then you need to get a new managing agent. They might as well be posting on the personals section of Craigslist. LinkedIn is the wrong audience. They should be working their network of union contacts, building staff, and using their street smarts to flush out a person who might make the move, which sounds mostly like a lateral change. An assistant super in a good-size building keeps doing it in hope that they move up to their bosses job (and apartment). If you're not offering an apartment, what's the financial equivalent you are offering? A car & driver?

Apologies, the word "last" was a typo and should have been "pay". My swiping text got confused.

For 32BJ super jobs, the salaries are listed here:
https://www.seiu32bj.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Final-NYM-RES-Contract-Highlights.pdf

We would be looking to pay a super more than that minimum. As you say, there's a tradeoff since we can't offer a super's unit. Thus we'd offer a higher salary and the opportunity to make the move to a full-time super from an assistant super. If the pay is agreeable to the candidate in compensation for not providing housing, then everyone gets what they want.

No one is trying to not pay the super fairly or try to get away with paying a minimum.

@Aaron2 we'd love to get a new managing agent who could do a better job. Unfortunately not having a super and management company at the same time would be an even worse situation.

I agree with everyone here that this situation isn't ideal. We don't have an apartment to offer a super. I can't change that. We can pay the super a salary to compensate for that shortcoming.

Our management company has issues. That's not our biggest fish to fry at the moment. We'll deal with that after we figure out the super situation.

If anyone knows of someone looking for a super job that fits the bill for our needs, please drop me a line.

Thanks for all the responses!

ChelseaSuperSearcher, thank you for the link. Your other option is to offer a rental apartment to the candidate within 300 feet of your building at no cost to them in addition to scale.

ChelseaSuperSearcher -- It just occurred to me that I may have some ideas for you, given that our building went through a super search relatively recently and interviewed several good candidates.

No clue of course whether any of them are even still available but might be worth a shot, or whether the lack of housing would be an instant deal-killer but might be worth a shot. I'd have to get info from our managing agent of course. If you want, feel free to email me at myjunkzone@gmail.com (it's one of my anonymous email addys hence the odd name). Please put Streeteasy in the subject line so I see it amongst all the junk mail that comes in...