Help Wanted:
Will you be able to post your insurance jobs in a way that attracts the right people to work for your business? Hiring isn’t just about job descriptions and cover letters. The way you write your employment ads influences who applies and who you ultimately hire for your insurance jobs. Here’s how to craft an employment ad that will engage the best prospective employees.
Create a Persona
Your business advertises to find customers. Consider your Help Wanted ad an advertisement to find new employees. In both contexts, you must work to develop a sense of the ideal person you want to reach with your ad. What are the needs and desires of that person, and how can this teach you to effectively reach out to that prospective employee?
For example, if you have a part-time daytime job and you’d like to find a stable part time employee, you could consider creating a job ad that highlights the suitability of the position for parents who are returning to the workforce. Make sure that your ads don’t feel discriminatory, but angle them to the interests and needs of some of your ideal prospective employees.
Make Your Ad Easy to Read
Just as customers will skim over a blog post or an ad, prospective employees will skim job ads to see if they are the right fit. Use headers, subheadings, and lists to draw the eye and let prospective employees know exactly what the job is about, in a simple format.
Develop a Hook
When you write a blog post, your title matters. When you write a job ad, the ad title and the job title matter as well. Each one hooks the reader into reading more and intrigues your prospective employees with possibilities. While Customer Service Specialist II might be the official title for your job position, Customer Connection Superhero is a far more interesting ad title. If you’re using humor and metaphor, consider your audience, and make sure that your hook will attract the people that you want to attract to the position.
Screen Your Applicants
If you’re looking for specific skills, if you have specific hours in mind, or if you need particular qualifications, be sure to list these in your job ad. While it’s important to hire for traits as well as skills, some positions due require a skills baseline, and your job ad can clearly state that these are requirements. You can also weed out employees who are not detail-oriented by giving clear instructions about how to phrase replies to your job ad.
For example, you can ask prospective hires to place a certain phrase in the title of their email. This helps you filter emails, and it also shows you that those applicants are the ones who read and understood the job application.
Look at the Competition
How do you write the best Help Wanted ad? Look at other peoples’ help wanted ads, take the best elements, and improve upon them. If you’re a small insurance agency and you have a more limited advertising budget, look at larger companies’ ads to see what keywords they use and how they frame their jobs. Search for other independent insurance agencies’ ads as well, so that you can compare your ad with others from agencies that are equivalent to your own.
At American Agents Alliance, we’re here to help you grow your business. From networking opportunities at our annual American Agents Alliance Convention & Expo to our many membership benefits that help you grow your employees’ capacity and your business, we work with independent insurance agencies to make sure that you can successfully build your business over time. Contact us today to join our insurance network.
