Recruitment for Insurance: Technology and Creativity

Chris Sharp:
00:00
Hello. Thanks for joining. This is Chris Sharp and you're listening to part two of our podcast with Mark Millett, Recruiter and Learning and Development Specialist for A.I.M. Mutual, a workers' compensation insurer based in Burlington, Massachusetts. In our last podcast we talked about some of the challenges around recruitment and hiring trends in our industry. In part two we'll be talking further with Mark about the roles of technology and corporate culture and recruitment and why employers need to take a hard look at hiring practices. Welcome back, Mark. Very happy to talk with you again.
 
Mark Millett:
00:32
Hey Chris.   
 
Chris Sharp:
00:34
So, let's get into technology. What are the best tools that you think there are to reach candidates even the ones who aren't actively looking? 
 
Mark Millett:
00:44
So there's a lot of different job boards out there. I focus on three when I do recruiting and those three are Indeed, Glass Door and LinkedIn. The statistics show that those are the three that most people are looking at it. I mean there's hundreds of job boards out there that you can post jobs onto, but those are the big three that I try to focus on. And depending on the type of candidate you're looking for I can't say that one's better than the other, but I will say that I think with LinkedIn for example, you get, you know, somebody who's already in that professional kind of area as opposed to someone on Indeed that may be just initially starting their job search and maybe not have as much of a background as someone on Indeed. That's not true across the board, but for the most part that's what I see.
 
Mark Millett:
01:38
I'll tell you an interesting story about LinkedIn. So, we were looking for a specific type of candidate for a specific job. We posted the job out on LinkedIn and as it turned out, we didn't necessarily find the person because they were looking for the job on LinkedIn they actually looked at my profile on LinkedIn and I noticed it. And so I clicked on their profile and what do you know, this person had the exact experience, the exact location they had everything we were looking for. So there's someone that wasn't even looking for a job, but was on LinkedIn. I found that person on LinkedIn and we just hired that person. She went through the whole process and we just hired her so  
 
Chris Sharp:
02:19
it pays to be attentive 
 
Mark Millett: 
02:20
and be on social media. 
 
Chris Sharp:
02:23
Right. 
 
Mark Millett: 
02:23
So technology is big nowadays. You know we talked about millennials earlier. They're obviously big in technology. It's pretty much all they know. So you've got to use technology when recruiting for sure.
 
Chris Sharp:
02:37
Okay. And, along the same lines, I guess in the last probably two decades or so, there's been an increasing importance placed on corporate culture. How important is corporate culture for what you're trying to do and what you're trying to build?
 
Mark Millett:
02:51
Absolutely. So, there's a lot of jobs out there and not a lot of quality candidates. So if you want to find those quality candidates, I think you really have to focus on your company culture and what sets you apart. It's just like marketing any kind of product, right? So if you're marketing soap, what makes your soap better than the other? Well, if we're trying to obtain candidates, what makes working for our company better than working for any other company? So I think that's really what you need to focus on it. And that's all about culture. Why are you here? What do you do? What's your purpose? What's your vision? What are your values? What do you believe in as a company? And I think those are things that you really need to promote to find those active candidates.
 
Chris Sharp:
03:32
Okay. This next one's kind of a two for one question. How can insurance stay competitive with other industries when it comes to recruiting both new grads and then by the same token, how do we capture the interests of experienced workers and what's the kind of the difference between the two? 
 
Mark Millett:
03:51
So, I think, you know, we talked about culture and kind of advertising your culture and promoting your culture as an important way to recruit all kinds of talent, whether it's a millennial, new grad or the experienced worker. I think another way to do that that's really important to people out there is benefits. So I think you have to take a look at what kind of benefits you're offering--what kind of benefits can you offer and what kind of benefits are people really looking for? And it's funny, I think that's where a lot changes when you talk about these different generations, whether it's the new grad or the experienced worker, right? And there's a lot of stories out there in the news and something we've been looking into here at A.I.M. Mutual. Not sure if it's going to happen, but the big thing you hear on the news now for example, is student loan repayment. 
 
Mark Millett:
04:37
So you've got all these graduates that are graduating school and what's their biggest thing? They're not really worried about the 401k plan you offer, but they're worried about how they're going to pay off their college 
 
Chris Sharp:
04:45
lifetime of debt. 
 
Mark Millett:
04:47
Exactly right. And they haven't even walked in the door yet and they've already got a mortgage payment. So, things like that. You know, getting creative with flexible schedules. Again, I think the millennials like having that flexible schedule. Is that something that your company can do? It's something we can certainly do here and do do here. Again, it's just kind of looking at this, the person, the situation, it's not necessarily a one size fits all. I think that's kind of the catchall term now.
 
Chris Sharp:
05:19
Okay. And so as a workers’ compensation carrier, A.I.M. Mutual recommends that employers look closely at their hiring practices and the interview process in particular. But why is that so important?
 
Mark Millett:
05:33
So I could probably sit here and spend a couple of hours on all the different laws and regulations that you have to worry about when you're hiring people and employment law and all that sort of stuff. I mean, we could talk ad nauseum about that stuff, but what I'll say is, just be careful, right? There are certain things you can ask and there are certain things you can't ask. And what's difficult about that is some of the things that you wish you could ask, some of the things you want the information about, you can't ask. So that's where it gets kind of challenging. But, I'd err on the side of caution and just kind of focus on, focus on the job, focus on what kind of skills or what kind of behaviors are you looking for that job and everything else is secondary. One interesting point is as workers' compensation insurance company I'll bring up is there is a benefit out there called the second injury fund. So if you hire someone that was hurt, injured previously at a previous employer, your company may not have to pay those workers’ compensation claims if they get hurt at your place of business. Now, what's difficult about that is that's one of the questions you're not allowed to ask a candidate. So, you know, I would just, again, that's kind of just an example. If somebody mentions something about being injured at a previous employer, I would just jot that down, make a side note. It's hard to unknow what they tell you and sometimes that works in your favor and sometimes it doesn't. But again, I would just be careful and err on the side of caution and just focus on the job itself.
 
Chris Sharp:
07:15
Great. Thank you so much and thank you for your time and insight Mark, and for those listening out there, thank all of you for your attention and valuable time as well. Please join us for our next topic soon.