Agency Marketing Technology
Using craigslist to find new staff
Becoming a savvy recruiter through the use of the Net
By Steve Anderson
In several of my recent columns I have explored how insurance agencies and companies need to begin to understand the purchasing patterns of younger generations. They are different. If we want to attract these younger generations as our clients, we are going to have to learn how to adapt our selling process to reflect their wants and desires.
We also need to adopt this same process as we seek to attract, hire and retain younger generations as agency staff. The demographics are against us. Of the approximately 78 million Baby Boomers alive today, about 8,000 are turning 60 every day. If we are going to be able to find anyone to replace them in our agencies, we have to start understanding how to find younger professionals—quickly.
One option that some agencies use to find these younger people is craigslist (www.craigslist.com). If you don’t know anything about craigslist, just ask your kids. It is very likely they will be able to give you a lesson on what it is and how they use it.
A little history
According to Wikipedia, Craig Newmark of San Francisco founded craigslist in 1995. He created a simple Web site where people could post information about cool events happening around the San Francisco Bay area. As more information began to be posted on the site, word of its utility began to spread by word of mouth. Friends suggested calling it “craigslist” to reinforce its personal and down-to-earth nature. Newman still feels awkward about such a visible site being named after him.
Over time, people began posting items on the list in different areas—jobs, stuff for sale, and apartments, the latter in response to San Francisco’s apartment shortage. Craig wrote software that could automatically add e-mail postings to www.craigslist.org.
After being approached toward the end of 1997 about running banner ads, he decided to make craigslist non-commercial. “Some things should be about money, some shouldn’t, and I make enough doing contract programming,” Craig says. He was joined by other folks who proposed running face-to-face parties to make the sense of virtual community more physical, and who proposed creating a nonprofit foundation as part of craigslist.
A full-time staff of about 24 people runs craigslist. Its sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities ($75 per ad for the San Francisco Bay Area; $25 per ad for New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Chicago and, recently Portland, Oregon) and paid broker apartment listings in New York City—$10 per ad.
Application to the insurance industry
It is the posting of online job ads that caught my attention. For college-aged kids (I’m old enough to call them “kids”), craigslist is a primary method that they use to find just about anything: apartments, products, jobs, roommates, etc. So if you want to attract this type of employee, you need to post your job openings where they will see them.
Craigslist has become the primary source for recruiting new producers for one agency in the greater Seattle area. The human resources director of this agency told me that craigslist has produced a larger number of higher-quality job applicants than anything else that they’ve used. Following is an example of the type of ad they have placed on craigslist:
“A successful addition to our team must have prior success selling high-end business services to top executives in a competitive market. You must be willing to prospect, be excellent at finding new opportunities, and have strong closing skills. You should be a self-starter and be willing to work for remote office with 90% of your time spent in the field. Experience in commercial real estate, risk management, commercial property and casualty insurance, banking, or employee benefits a plus. Prospective employee not required to relocate if in surrounding area. Must have prior earnings of at least $100,000. E-mail your resume to hr@abcagency.com.”
This ad is posted in the “sales jobs” category. Because this particular agency is in the Seattle-Tacoma area, each posting costs $25. A job posting will expire from the site in 45 days. The job can be reposted for an additional $25 charge. The fee pays for one job ad in one category, so one job ad posted into different categories would cost $50. If your agency is located in a city that is not in the list above, this job posting would not cost anything.
In order to post anything on craigslist, including a job posting, you will need to create an account on the site. This is an extremely simple process that requires that you provide a valid e-mail address. After a confirmation e-mail arrives at your e-mail address, you simply add a password to log into your account.
When you post a job, a number of options become available. Generally a job posting would include: a description of the job, the compensation for the job (this could be salary, salary plus commission, commission-only, etc.), the e-mail you would like replies sent to, and checkboxes for additional information like “telecommuting o.k.,” part-time, contract, etc. You can also choose to limit how people will respond. For example, you can specify that job recruiters are not to contact you, that phone calls about the job are okay, etc.
Craigslist cities are available for the United States and many international cities. Currently there are 328 separate U.S. city sites. It is likely that you’ll find your city listed. If you don’t, you can always click on the link “suggest a new one” to see if they’ll add your city to the list.
I am committed to exploring and experimenting with tools like craigslist that will help the insurance industry find, attract, and retain the best and the brightest of the new generation of employees. I suggest you begin experimenting also. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. *