Part two of our three part Building Better Job Ads series. See part one here. See part two here.
By Kellie Lail
On average, most candidates only spend about 15 seconds looking at an individual job ad. That’s insane right? That means you only have a few seconds to communicate the job to your potential future employee and to catch their eye so that they’ll apply. Candidates are going to be most focused on your salary, benefits, and job description. Keeping the other sections short and sweet can sometimes help maintain their attention. You want to focus on giving them just a “taste” of the position to reel them in.
As far as Responsibilities and Requirements go, I recommend keeping it short and sweet. Only about 5 bullet points in each of those two sections. When listing your 5 responsibilities, think about the things that the candidate will be doing in this position no less than 95% of every single day.
- Are they doing sales? You could mention cold-calling, relationship building, making sales presentations, closing sales, generating new leads, following up on warm leads,building relationships with local organizations, using computer sales databases, building relationships with clients, etc.
- Are they doing customer service? You could mention if they’ll be taking payments, answering questions, updating insurance documentation, building relationships with clients to maintain retention, following up, helping clients round out their accounts, shopping renewals, updating client management software, maintaining notes, etc.
You want to make sure you are using clear and concise verbiage to describe the responsibilities to the candidates. Ensure you are using common keywords to help assist with the searchability of your job ad.
I also recommend only including requirements that are absolutely essential. For example, would you prefer someone with 3 years of insurance sales experience, but you’re open to hiring the right candidate with no insurance experience? Don’t mention the three years of sales experience in the requirements. If the candidate has to have 3 years of insurance sales experience or you will not even consider their application, go ahead and include it. You want to keep the requirements section as concise as possible, so only mention things that would be an absolute deal breaker if even your dream candidate didn’t meet that criteria.
Are you willing to hire someone who is not yet licensed but is willing to get licensed? What if they have other previous sales or customer service experience? In the current market it can take an average of 12-16 weeks to find a candidate who is already licensed and experienced. Being willing to help someone get their license can help to cast a wider net and even fosters loyalty with future employees. This shows that you are willing to invest in them to help them grow their career.
If you are willing to help someone get licensed, I recommend including “Property and Casualty license is preferred, but we are willing to train” or “We will assist you with your licensing” in the job Requirements section. If you do offer any licensing assistance or reimbursement, I would list that in your benefits section as well!!
It is much harder in the current market to find people with experience in the insurance industry. Think about the underlying foundational skills you need your future employees to have. Outgoing Personality? Being comfortable with Cold-Calling, understanding of computer programs and social media? Problem solving skills? Check out our templates to give you more ideas about things to include in your requirements section.
Of course, everyone’s dream candidate would be able to juggle a million different responsibilities and would meet every single possibility listed in our job requirement templates, but remember you’re searching for your missing puzzle piece and you want to be realistic about which one will fit.