Fact 01Since 1998
Salaried
0 %
No commission on a sale.
Every advisor is salaried. Nobody earns more for pushing a house that is wrong for the buyer, so nobody does.
Salary bands published internally
Where faults stay visible.
Nothing is outsourced, nothing is commission-led, and nobody here is asked to sell a house they would not survey themselves.
Plate 01 How the job is built Median tenure nine years
Honest by construction, not by poster.
Nobody here has to choose between doing the job properly and being paid. The structure took that decision years ago.
Fact 02Every listing
In-house
100 %
Nothing is outsourced.
Survey, photography, plans and the legal read are all done by people on the payroll. The work you sign is the work you did.
75 people, five disciplines
Fact 03Last year
Refused
9 in 100
We turn instructions away.
No survey, no listing. If a seller will not have the faults published, we lose the instruction — and nobody is blamed for it.
38 instructions lost to this
Fact 04Median
Kept
9 yrs
People do not leave.
The median tenure here is nine years. In this trade it is under three, which tells you more than any page about culture could.
Longest serving, 26 years
Where that leaves youSeventy-five people, none of them on commission, and nine years before the average one moves on.
Unchanged since 1998Plate 02 Four desks Notices posted March 2026
Four desks are open.
Salary printed on the notice, because asking you to guess it wastes both our afternoons.
AV-CAR-01
Advisor
London · Full time, hybrid
Carry twelve homes at a time from first call to keys, with one file never handed to somebody else halfway.
Salary£64 000 — £78 000
Closes30 April
AV-CAR-02
Advisor
New York · Full time, in office
The same desk as London, on a market where pre-approval comes first and everything moves in forty-one days.
Salary$96 000 — $118 000
Closes15 May
AV-CAR-03
Valuer
Paris · Full time, on site
Measure, inspect and put your name to a report that goes out unedited, faults and all.
Salary€58 000 — €71 000
Closes30 April
AV-CAR-04
Archivist
Paris · Part time considered
Keep the register — 3 300 files, every one findable in under a minute, on paper and off it.
Salary€41 000 — €49 000
ClosesRolling
If none of these fitSend a portfolio anyway. Two of the last five hires arrived that way.
Send a portfolioPlate 03 From application to answer Everybody hears back
Fourteen days, whatever the answer.
Five steps, none of them a surprise. If we say no it comes with a reason, and it comes from a person.
Day 0 — day 14
Day 0
Application
Day 3 — 5
First conversation
Day 6 — 9
A short exercise
Day 10 — 12
A day in the office
Day 13 — 14
Offer or a reason
Your move Ours Two of the five are your time, and neither is unpaid work
Step 01You
One form, one page, one portfolio link if the desk wants one. We do not ask for a cover letter and we do not score you on keywords.
Nobody yet — it goes to the desk head
Step 02Us
Thirty minutes with whoever runs the desk. We ask about a file you are proud of and one that went wrong; you ask us anything, including money.
The head of the discipline, thirty minutes
Step 03You
A valuer prices a fictional flat; an advisor drafts an intake note; an archivist indexes a messy box. Two hours, on your own time, on invented material.
Set and marked by two people
Step 04Both
You sit with the desk, walk the archive, and eat with the team. Half of it is us showing you the job honestly; the rest is you deciding you want it.
The desk, the archive and lunch with the team
Step 05Us
Yes or no, always by day fourteen, always by phone before it is in writing. A no comes with what was missing and whether we would like you to try again.
The desk head, by telephone
Plate 04 Two ways to earn the same year Advisor, London, 2025
The same total, a different year.
Both advisors earned about seventy thousand last year. One of them knew it in January.
At most agenciesCommission only
£71kover the year
JanAprJulOctDec
Worst month£0.8k
Best month£14.8k
Months below the rent6 of 12
At AvavaSalary, twelve equal months
£71kover the year
JanAprJulOctDec
Worst month£5.9k
Best month£5.9k
Months below the rentNone
What that changesAn advisor who is not counting months does not push a house that is wrong for the buyer.
Reviewed every AprilPlate 05 Terms of employment Six things, all of them contractual
No table football. Six real things.
Everything here is written into the contract, not into a culture deck, and none of it is discretionary.
Clause 2.1Day one
€3 400
Training, paid for
A budget per person per year for courses, conferences and books, spent on your own judgement.
€214 000 across the firm last year
Clause 2.2Day one
In full
Certification, paid for
RICS, the bar, whatever your discipline needs — fees, study leave and the retake if it comes to that.
19 people sat an exam last year
Clause 2.3Day one
20 days
Four weeks off
Plus public holidays and the days between Christmas and the new year, which nobody counts.
Carried over up to five days
Clause 2.4Day one
12
Twelve homes, no more
A cap on what one advisor carries at a time, written into the contract so no manager can raise it.
Policy since 2011
Clause 2.5Year one
After 1 yr
Flexible pattern
Four days, compressed hours or two days from home — agreed with the desk, not applied for.
31 of 75 are on one today
Clause 2.6After 5 yrs
6 weeks
Sabbatical
Six weeks paid, on top of holiday, once you have been here five years. Twice so far this year.
Taken by 11 people since 2019
All six apply to part-time contracts, pro rata Nothing here is at a manager’s discretion
Plate 06 One firm, measured across Drawing 06 / 08 · rev. B
Seventy-five people, one span.
The two segments with a red tick are the ones with a desk open. Everything else is at strength.
Overall — 75 people · 100 %
41
Advisory
12
Valuation
9
7
6
01530456075
01 · 54.7 %Hiring
Advisory
Takes the instruction, sits in on the survey, and stays on the file from the first call to the keys.
Looking forSomebody who would rather lose an instruction than oversell one.
02 · 16.0 %Hiring
Valuation
Measures, inspects and prices — then signs a report that goes out unedited, faults and all.
Looking forA surveyor who will defend a figure to a disappointed seller.
03 · 12.0 %At strength
Legal
Reads the title before we list, not after an offer. Nine people, no outside counsel.
Looking forA conveyancer tired of being the last to know.
04 · 9.3 %At strength
Design & Media
Forty frames a home, unretouched, plus the measured plans. Nothing is sent to a freelancer.
Looking forA photographer who thinks a north-facing room is a subject, not a problem.
05 · 8.0 %Hiring
Operations
Keeps the register — 3 300 files, every one findable in under a minute, on paper and off it.
Looking forSomebody who finds a badly filed box genuinely annoying.
Plate 07 In their own words Recorded March 2026, unedited
Three people who stayed.
We asked them what they would tell somebody thinking of applying, and printed the answers as given.
14 yrs
I came from an agency where I was told which flat to push on a Saturday. Here nobody has ever told me that, and I stopped waiting for it to happen in about the third month.
Camille RousselAdvisor · Paris
11 yrs
The first report I wrote had eleven faults in it. I braced for the conversation about softening it. The conversation was about whether I had costed the roof properly.
Oscar CharrierChief valuer · Paris
6 yrs
I am not a property person and I was not one when I applied. They hired me because I said the filing in my last job was a disgrace, and I meant it.
Mira AldridgeArchivist · London
Between them, thirty-one years here Nobody was asked to approve a quote before it went up
Plate 08 Application slip Ref. AV-CAR-26 Open
Fourteen days, whatever the answer.
Four desks are open and a portfolio is welcome whether or not one of them fits. Two of the last five hires arrived without a vacancy to answer.
careers@avava.com · +33 1 00 00 00 00
What happens next
01A person reads it3 days
02Thirty minutes on the phoneDay 3 — 5
03A two-hour exercise, invented fileDay 6 — 9
04A day with the desk, then an answerDay 10 — 14
Everybody hears back14 days
Two promises
A no comes by telephone, with what was missing. No exercise is ever set on a live file.
