Spotlight Online for Employment and Recruiting Professionals, March 17, 2010
In spite of the turbulence the struggling economy has caused in the job market, 2008 and 2009 marked the most productive years in American Income Life's (AIL) 56-year history. During that two-year span, AIL’s state general agents opened offices and the company promoted managers across the country at a brisk pace.
“These two factors caused us to turn up the intensity of our college recruiting program,” says Ron Newlin, director of college recruitment for the life insurance company, which is headquartered in Waco, Texas. “We are looking to college recruiting to help us find our future leaders and help us continue to grow. The economy has made us more aggressive.”
He says the record growth and expansion helped the company’s college recruiting efforts. One factor that Newlin and his staff had not anticipated is the lack of activity of other companies.
“We are unique in the insurance industry and, with the lack of competition, students and alumni that may not have considered us in the past looked at our opportunities,” Newlin says. “The simple fact of less competition for the top candidates has helped us reach more students and alumni.”
Newlin points out that selling management on expanding college recruiting during the recession was easy because AIL’s management has always recognized the importance of college recruiting.
“We believe in order to grow you must have the people and products in place before you need them,” he says. “This philosophy keeps us operating from a position of strength and ready to take advantage of any future opportunity.”
A recent success story that underscores the importance of AIL’s college recruiting program occurred during the company’s last international management meeting. AIL promoted six people—all of whom were brought into the company as an intern or as a recent college graduate—to the company’s top field management position.
Newlin says response to AIL’s recruiting and hiring activity during the recession has been very favorable among colleges, students, and alumni.
“In my opinion, [a recession] is the best time to brand your company,” he says. “Anyone can speak about growth and opportunity in a good economy, but only a stable company that holds true to its values can do this in a down economy. This speaks volumes to everyone we have encountered in the last few years.”
Meanwhile, Newlin says the best starting point for recruiting during a recession is for HR practitioners to know their college recruiting budgets and align them with their companies’ goals and needs.
“Once they have that knowledge, it is much easier for them to assess where they need to put their resources and where they can use [these resources] more effectively,” he adds. “Most of college recruiting is free, so much of the planning is logistics and time management.”
This, Newlin says, includes information sessions, on-campus interviews, speaking to campus organizations, and more. Furthermore, employers should take advantage of their own resources, such as branch locations, and employees and alumni from target schools.
“I would venture to say that they may have many people in their companies that have a passion for college recruiting,” Newlin says. “This can mean they want to recruit from the college they graduated from or are fans of, or they just enjoy speaking to young people about their companies. These people can help with just an hour or two of time and would readily jump in to help if they only knew of HR’s needs.”
For companies that have cut back college recruiting, Newlin recommends that to restart their efforts, they start at the career center.
“If recruiters make the effort to sit down with career services, these practitioners will give recruiters the keys to success,” Newlin says. “Career services professionals can advise on what works best at their college and [identify] the hot buttons of students and alumni. I think career services professionals are heroes and are an invaluable resource to their schools, employers, and the community.”