OVERCOMINGHIRING

A positive online presence helps prove to job candidates that agencies can walk the talk, especially given that the first action a potential applicant will often take is looking at a company's online presence, points out Blake Cavignac, growth advisor at Cavignac, based in San Diego. “You can sell people on joining you, but when they do join and the culture isn't what you said it was, they're going to think they were misled. We have a great culture, but if we aren't able to translate that into our website, our Glassdoor page and our LinkedIn page, then I don't think we'd have as much success."

To fulfill the agency's talent needs, Cavignac takes a proactive hiring approach using LinkedIn Recruiter, a paid service with multiple tiers. “We'll put in the geographic area we're looking in, identify candidate job titles, and LinkedIn will come back with candidates," he says. “I'll then briefly review the profiles to see if they're a fit, and if they are, I'll reach out via a customized email or InMail on LinkedIn."

Current employees also offer some of the best marketing for job openings. “Good people know good people, and we have a ton of really good people here within our organization," says Gage McKinnis, operations lead at Specialty Risk Insurance. “When you have a need, it's a lot easier when you say, 'Hey, we need a couple of people to join the team,' and before long you have a list of candidates that our people know and feel confident they'd be good assets to the organization."

Specialty Risk Insurance has also “started a very aggressive internship campaign," Morgan adds. “In the summers, we provide a paid internship with living expenses. We've had four or five young people that all started as interns and then worked part-time remotely during college who, when they graduated, just naturally wanted to continue their career here."

What if, even after you've drafted a clear job advertisement and publicized it through both

Continued from page 36 recruiting sites and word of mouth, you're still struggling to attract quality candidates?

First, go back to the geography, pay and experience variables, and don't be afraid to test for different factors, Waldowski says. “Let's say you post an ad for an in-office insurance sales rep, but you've been struggling to find candidates," he says. “You could post a remote opportunity for that individual job, or you could also run one with different experience or licensing criteria."

But here's another question: Is it too difficult for candidates to apply for your job? If the process to apply is too lengthy or complicated, you may be losing out on qualified applicants. The length of an initial application is a factor for 66% of job candidates in determining whether they'll complete and submit it, and more than 70% of job seekers said they will not submit a job application if it takes more than 15 minutes to complete, according to Greenhouse's “2022 Candidate Experience Report."