How Is AI Being Used in Insurance Recruiting?

I know this topic is top of mind for a lot of agencies in the hope that technology can make it easier to find good talent more quickly. Job seekers are hopeful, too, because the vast amount of information online can be hard to wade through to find the perfect career.

Since technology advances so rapidly, I’m cautious about projecting too far into the future. At this time, all I can speak to is where I’ve seen AI be a resource or have influence in the recruiting process for both hiring leaders and candidates.

Candidates and companies use AI to write cover letters, resumes, job descriptions, and job advertisements. This is a huge relief for people who don’t feel confident with creative writing. For others, it ensures their materials line up with what’s common in the market.

Most importantly, AI is interactive, so rather than templates or samples that feel impersonal, you can constantly refine and tailor these pieces to specific jobs, situations, and keyword terms.

If you use AI to write job descriptions, make sure to edit it in a tone of voice that sounds like you and doesn’t appear to plagiarize another company’s ad. You also want to make sure all the information included is compliant with internal and external regulations.

As a hiring leader, you also want to scrutinize resumes. At first glance it may be difficult to tell which CVs were written with the help of AI. If something seems out of place–not the standard way insurance people talk–or doesn’t line up with what you know about the market, it’s fair to flag that resume for additional vetting.

Sometimes my team sees a huge influx of job applications randomly and unexpectedly. That’s largely driven by AI that learns job seeker behaviors and pushes new jobs that are similar to what they’ve applied to before. This can be good for both the company advertising the job as well as the candidate, provided the keywords do match experience and requirements correctly.

A lot of agency owners have said they hope AI in agency management systems eliminates tedious backroom servicing. We’ll see this with HRIS and recruiting software, too. HR teams want technology to help with resume screening, candidate sourcing, and initial interviews. If you’ve ever seen the ‘Chat With Us’ feature on a company’s Careers page, then you know that’s also AI at work to match people faster with job openings.

Setting up the interview process consumes a considerable amount of time, second only to screening applicants. Many companies use interview schedulers, and some programs conduct the initial phone interviews with a virtual assistant. What I really like are features to summarize interviews. It saves a ton of time with documentation and makes prior interview notes available to everyone who participates in the process.

A lot of candidates use AI to research companies. They can ask for comparisons with your job description and their skills that will help them know what interview questions to expect. There are practice programs to simulate job interviews. Job seekers can also receive suggested questions from AI that they can ask companies during the interview process.

One of the most common things my team hears right now is, “I went on ChatGPT to ask what I should make.” Between relocation situations, cost of living comparisons, and frankly just a desire for people to feel paid appropriately, a quick Google search can generate a lot of compensation information. While that may not be perfect, it is good for you as a hiring leader to be aware of, especially because pay remains one of the most uncomfortable things for people to talk about in an interview and one that easily trips up the process.