An 'efficient' approach to connecting students with insurance careers
For Anita Nevins, using technology to connect university students with insurance careers is the answer to closing the talent gap.
For years, Anita Nevins watched as insurance-industry conferences and events suffered from dwindling attendance. “[It was] a struggle to get agents and brokers out of their offices,” she recalls. Around 2009, the founder and CEO of Direct Connection Advertising & Marketing found a savvy solution to reach office-bound insurance professionals by venturing into the virtual event space with the creation of Spark Online Events.
After several years of running successful virtual events, Nevins identified a new opportunity in the market: ”I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out an efficient and cost-effective way to bring university students to insurance hiring managers?’” she says. With her online event expertise in hand and a pressing need for insurance companies to recruit new talent, she knew the answer was to create a virtual career fair. In this model, insurance companies from across the country can reach potential new hires from the comfort of their offices. At the same time, talent can network and learn about the industry without having to travel to an event physically.
In April, Spark Online Events will host its first online career fair for the property & casualty insurance industry. Graduating students from universities and colleges are invited to attend the event free of charge. Exhibitors will have virtual booth space for their company representatives to converse live with candidates using chatbot technology that helps the recruiters rank prospects after speaking with them based on their conversation, uploaded resumes and applicable skills. Other advantages of a virtual format include students’ capability to chat with multiple exhibiting companies at the same time and a pre-programmed questionnaire for attendees from exhibitors that helps rank the students based on how good a fit they are for the organization, Nevins shares.
In an industry that notoriously adopts innovative concepts later than most, Nevins sees this type of event as being a win-win for insurance companies and talent. “It’s, unfortunately, so hard sometimes to find the right fit for what the hiring manager may be looking for. [Insurance companies] see this as being very efficient from a time standpoint because you can source several different candidates and qualify them, so it ultimately helps to determine which candidates to spend time with,” she explains.
For students, exploring job opportunities via a virtual platform opens the door to opportunities that previously may have gone unnoticed. For example, a California-based university student interested in jobs outside their state can easily converse with several companies all over the country without having to step foot on a plane. And if a job opportunity doesn’t immediately transpire from the virtual career fair, there are still other benefits for students and companies alike.
“Let’s say that I am a student, and I visit the [virtual] booth for ABC Insurance. I look at the jobs they have available, but they’re not necessarily what I was looking for at that moment. But because I was able to chat with somebody from ABC Insurance and see some of their marketing collateral … [I realize] that maybe this is a company that I want to circle back to because I might want to work for them someday. So, I do see a residual benefit to the virtual career fair that goes beyond just the one-day event,” Nevins concludes.
To learn more about the upcoming Virtual Insurance Career Fair, visit the event’s page here.
For more stories on insurance careers, including how to recruit and foster new talent, visit our Instant Insights page, “P&C Insurance Careers: Bridging the talent gap.”
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