I Found My Home at a Company That Supports My Whole Self, From a Director and LatinX Woman

Considering taking on a new position or making a career leap can be an intimidating situation. Despite this, you should push through and lean into the change. “It’s always worth taking risks, getting up when you fail, and rising in spite of setbacks,” advises Molly Montaño, the Director of Campus Recruiting & Engagement at Realtor.com. 

Montaño herself is an example of taking this advice and making it work for her. She assumed a larger, more expanded role in March 2022, and when making a change like this, she emphasizes the importance of developing your network, furthering your skills, and growing your relationships at work, since all are key to your success.

As such, finding a great work culture with a supportive community are important pieces to successful career growth. Luckily for Montaño, she found both in spades at Realtor.com. As a LatinX woman, Montaño tells us that Realtor.com’s culture is one where “employees can bring their whole selves to work, and that includes acknowledging and celebrating their ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds,” she says. “This is one of many important bodies of work our employee resource groups (ERGs) do in the workplace to recognize and celebrate Hispanic/LatinX women and our cultures at work. I love being able to bring my Mexican-American pride to work every single day.”

At Realtor.com, one of our core values is ‘People are our foundation,’” she continues. “We strive to deliver a culture built on integrity, trust, and respect where employees feel completely at home. We value open, transparent communication and diversity of every kind. We aspire to create a place where the best talent can do the best work of their career.”

These values not only resonate deeply with Montaño, but are shown in how Realtor.com supports DEI initiatives and groups. “Realtor.com promotes gender equality, diversity, and inclusivity and positions our ERGs to support special cultural events like National Hispanic Heritage Month (NHHM),” she says. “This month-long event allows employees to showcase historical elements of our culture at work. This time is an opportunity to honor and celebrate Hispanic Americans' achievements, contributions, histories, and cultures.”

We reached out to Montaño to learn more about her best advice for growing your career and the ways in which your company can support you as you grow. Read on to see what she has to say.

Congrats on your new position! Can you tell us a bit more about your current role, and what excites you most about this role?

In my current role, I manage a team responsible for Realtor.com’s long-term talent attraction  strategy around emerging talent. I am excited about the opportunity to build a flagship, enterprise-wide program that will impact the entire company. 

The Emerging Talent team’s mission is to source and nurture top-tier candidates, as well as develop internal participants, in order to grow and retain high-performing emerging talent pools for Realtor.com in collaboration with our stakeholders. We serve as catalysts and provide a best-in-class emerging talent program that is a multi-year development opportunity to fulfill diverse talent needs within the company.

I am also very excited at the opportunity to help shape the careers of interns and new graduates and build future talent with our Internship Program, Build Your Foundation @Realtor.com. This is a comprehensive 11-week program that allows interns to participate in a one-of-a-kind experience with access to real-world assignments and the ability to network with leaders across the organization.

At Realtor.com, we aspire to be a destination for people at every stage in their careers, including those just getting started.

What do you like best about working in the area of Emerging Talent?

I love that I personally have the opportunity to work with future talent and leaders in my role. By empowering talent at a young age, I help create a new generation of powerful talent and leaders who are unafraid to pursue their dreams and reach their potential.

What advice do you have to other women in your industry who want to take their career path to the next level? 

Enlist confidants and mentors that challenge you to be the best version of yourself every day. Mentors are key in the advancement process. Having a vision and timeline for advancement is important too, as it allows you to gauge your progression and reflect on setbacks or obstacles. 

What’s the most memorable piece of career advice you’ve received? 

Be confident and comfortable with having career success. Being confident is one of the biggest ways a woman can position herself for leadership and important decision-making roles within an organization. Being confident entails accepting success and not apologizing for it. I keep this advice front and center in my career.

What’s something you think most people (perhaps even current employees) don’t know about Realtor.com that you think they should?

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made, and I have witnessed this to be the case at Realtor.com multiple times throughout my two years here. It inspires me to see women at the table who have a voice and are the backbone of the company.

I am fortunate to work daily with strong, passionate women throughout the company; my leader, peers, colleagues, internal customers, and team members. They are everywhere at Realtor.com. I am fortunate to have an empathic and strong female leader who sets an example for the rest of us to follow. Realtor.com genuinely cares about its people and promotes diversity and equality—women are given the opportunity to knock it out of the park.

What is your best piece of advice for other women who are afraid to move into or grow into a new role like you did?

Everything you do adds value to YOU, so do it well and with passion.

Know your worth. I get the call when my female friends are negotiating their offers because I am never afraid to talk about money, given my extensive experience negotiating offers with candidates. Culturally, women don’t like to discuss salary. But, why wouldn’t you want to ask for the money you need to live and thrive and that is equitable to your role and tenure?

Beyond money, know what else you value. I value time, and Realtor.com’s working models allow me to work with true flexibility. Normally, I have an hour-and-a-half commute each way, and having those lost three hours back is priceless. Skipping the commute enables me a day of total focus on projects that I need to get over the finish line.

I also love to travel and am willing to work while I am experiencing other cities or countries. A change of scenery opens up my creativity, and I relish having the freedom to work from my local coffee shop, another city, or at home in my pajamas. 

To each their home—and I found mine at Realtor.com.