You know all those sites and blogs that are inundated with life insurance agent job ads? They look a lot like the ones you see on your Facebook feed. And it’s true if you’re looking for agents to go in for a particular insurance product, it’s not hard to find them. The problem is that many of these ads target people who have no idea what they want.
That’s why so many agencies have tried to create a “recruitment strategy”. They set up an agency website (often having an interview or demo video) that showcases their product and lets potential applicants browse through their roster of agents. Now, this isn’t the only tool out there — and some agencies work better than others — but it has been a fairly effective way to generate interest in the business, show how well the agent lineup is working (and perhaps even provide a candidate with some initial feedback), and maybe even help guide people towards a better fit once they do know what they want (e.g., if they are considering being a full-time salesperson).
There are other ways, of course. For example, you could use someone else’s recruiting service or write your own job posting on Jobstreet and cold call potential candidates via their resumes. But I think this is one where it pays off to have your own place: if you can put together some top-notch content that showcases your product along with the benefits of working for your company, then you will likely get more applicants than just about any other recruiting site out there.
How to write a great insurance agency recruitment advertisement
Chances are you already write your own insurance recruitment articles when you need to recruit agents or something similar. It’s not that hard. But when you need something really special and unique, you have to have a custom piece of work.
Frankly, the reason why it seems like there aren’t nearly as many people joining your agency is that people have trouble identifying what is truly unique about your agency compared to others. If you don’t already feel like your agency has something special about it, chances are very high that no one else does either. The goal is to identify what’s unique about your business and then help them communicate this uniqueness effectively using social media.
One of the things people don’t realize is that there are two kinds of articles: those that tell stories and those that don’t. The first one has the responsibility of telling a story; the second one doesn’t. It’s much easier to make a great story than it is to make a great non-story. A story is usually an emotional attachment, but making an emotional attachment requires more thought and effort than just putting your heart into it and hoping for the best.
How to use lead generation concepts into your recruitment strategy
There are two ways to think about what you need to grow your insurance business. The first is the kind of knowledge you want to bring. The second is the people you want to bring. If you want people with insurance experience and a passion for the business, then you want to find them through referrals from current agents or from other companies that work with insurance. That’s it about most cases when it comes to finding new agents for your insurance business or someone else’s.
The fact that most people don’t realize how significant this aspect of getting new agents means that they don’t put enough time into finding them and they certainly don’t have any idea how much the process costs. In fact, until recently, there was no standardized process at all for this part of the recruiting process (the original way consultants worked was like a job search).
To be fair, there are plenty of reasons why this wouldn’t work: if an agent doesn’t like what he or she hears about your company, then the odds aren’t good that he or she will be able to change his or her mind. And if there isn’t a very clear line between a marketing person and an insurance professional, then it can be hard to tell which role someone plays in your organization (and even harder when they have different skills). But as long as you remember that getting new agents takes time and lots of it, then I would argue it should be one of the first things on your list when thinking about ways to grow your agency business (if not right up at the top).
We then have to establish what is Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for your agency? Does your agency have a fantastic lead generation strategy? Offer regular seminars to the public? Does your agency focus on family/baby insurance for new families? Financial Planning? Retirement planning? Is your agency made up largely of agents that are fresh graduates? Or that all your agents hit MDRT within the first year and you have the formulae for success. How about an insurance agency with a Christian agenda. Maybe.
Nailing the right USP down and articulating it clearly across is a major factor for why people would want to want to join your agency. You should have a good idea of who your target market is. Fresh Graduates? Mid-Career switchers? Or attracting experienced agents trying to make the next breakthrough. You should also have a good idea of what your best recruitment channels are – Jobstreet? LinkedIn? Facebook?. What would be the optimal way to target them?
Is your agency focused on Family Planning targeting newly married couples? Or those in their 40s looking at retirement planning? Or targeting those slightly more saavy that wants someone to manage their portfolio. Saying you do everything is as good as saying nothing.
In the insurance industry, like in many other industries, it’s all about who you know and what you know. If you know the right people, you can find the perfect candidates to add to your agency. If you aren’t sure where to start, we’ve recently launched a new portal over at Singapore Insurance Jobs – a recruitment portal create just to service the insurance industry right here in Singapore.
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