Life insurance sales more attractive to job seekers

According to recruiting experts Hays, a career in life insurance sales is now considered more attractive to job seekers, but employer inflexibility is holding businesses back from securing talented and eager candidates. Chris Mead, General Manager of Hays in Singapore, has this update.

There is growing interest from candidates, particularly at the entry level, in a career in life insurance. Candidate feedback shows that there is now a lot less stigma surrounding a career in life insurance compared to what there once was. It seems the downturn took some of the shine off the allure of a trading or other higher-risk finance career.

But we will continue to see a skills shortage in life insurance unless employers relax their focus on only recruiting candidates with five or more years of experience.

Most life insurers are now looking for experienced Life Underwriters, either Group or Retail, as a result of growth in demand and competition within such products. They want candidates that already understand the subject matter, can make decisions and add value immediately. They want someone who can hit the ground running.

But the current supply of such candidates is disproportional to the demand for experienced Life Underwriters in Singapore. Despite this, employers will not consider recruiting and training an entry-level candidate, or employing an Underwriter with two to three years experience.

Such unwillingness to invest in candidates has not only led to a number of candidates being unable to pursue a career in life insurance, but it also has obvious long-term skills shortage ramifications. This comes at a time when employers could be taking advantage of candidate interested in a career in life insurance.

There’s also a vast disparity in the salaries offered by employers for the same role, and those employers offering salaries at the lower end of the scale find it far more difficult to secure skills over others. For example, one employer might offer $50,000 while another might offer as much as $90,000 for the same job function.

While candidates are attracted to roles for more than just the salary on offer, this only extends so far and the top talent will not apply for a role offering $40,000 less than a comparable role elsewhere.

Hays, the world’s leading recruiting experts in qualified, professional and skilled people.