Destination Insurance: Reject applicants the right way to stop ‘switching people off what is a really attractive industry’

Rejecting applicants the right way could stop “switching people off what is a really attractive industry” at the door, according to Zurich UK’s chief human resources officer Steve Collinson.

Speaking during an Insurance Times webinar, entitled The Destination Insurance charter: Improving talent pipelines in UKGI and the London market, Collinson said that the way employers engage with applicants – even those they do not hire – can have a lasting impact on the sector’s appeal.

The online panel session, which was sponsored by the Chartered Insurance Institute and insurers HDI Global and Zurich, marked the launch of Insurance Times’ Destination Insurance Charter.

This has been created to be an ongoing, editorially driven campaign that seeks to support the UK general insurance and London markets in addressing talent challenges and helping the industry to become a properly earmarked destination for fulfilling careers.

Collinson stressed that as the graduate market is highly competitive, it is important as an employer that “you mustn’t fool yourself into thinking they’ve only applied for you”.

In turn, he felt that providing applicants a good experience during the hiring process, regardless of whether they are hired or not, could lead them to discover a wide range of opportunities beyond traditional insurance roles.

He continued: “They might get offers from a number of firms.

“The rise of the renege has been interesting over the last few years, people keep their options open for as long as they possibly can. You think you’ve got your cohort sorted and then people think about an offer elsewhere.

“So, as well as attracting people, putting them through a good experience, helping them to understand the purpose of your organisation and keeping them hot through the process from the point at which you say, here’s your job offer, to them walking through the door is really important.”

Broadening opportunities

With challenges in grabbing the attention of new talent at the door persisting, panellist Gemma McWilliam, chief people officer at HDI UK and Ireland, noted that using less traditional forms of assessments when hiring can broaden access long-term. 

At HDI Global, this includes speed dating style interviews and varied activities that “give individuals their best chance to shine in a number of different situations”.

She continued: “We certainly push the apprenticeship piece as a business at the moment.

“We’ve been playing with – does an internship just before your apprenticeship work well? Because that is a chance for both employee and the individual to assess whether or not this is the right career choice for them.”

McWilliam said that the firm found it worked better to have that internship a year before so that the firm could “help people understand a little bit more about the industry a good year ahead of actually wanting to enter the workforce”.

She added: “We get to know them, they get to know us, and then we advertise those opportunities to them very early.”