With the onset of September, we all feel the end of the summer holidays and that “return to school” feeling, however old we are. New terms at schools and universities are inevitably the beginning of final years for some students and that means many are starting to look at what career options are available to them.
It is truth universally acknowledged that the speciality insurance market is not as high up the career choice ladder for new talent as it should be. Other financial and professional services are better known, better understood and therefore more sought after than working in the London Market. But I can’t tell you how many of the younger professionals that I have met in the market who have told me how much they wished more people knew what the market had to offer. Almost universally, they feel that they have stumbled, rather by accident, into something that is challenging, fulfilling and fun – and they inevitably become wonderfully passionate advocates for careers in speciality insurance.
If you then marry this with the need for the market to build better diversity and inclusion, then there is a need for collective action. We want the market to be attractive to the widest possible pool of new and existing talent, with a breadth of skills and diversity of background and thinking. To achieve this, we need to build a brand campaign for the market to attract this talent. The complex, commercial insurance market needs to tell a compelling story to get cut through against other financial services which are better known, as well as make it as easy as possible for candidates to navigate around the market to find out what opportunities are available.
One example of the gap that we need to fill is explaining the purpose and mechanics of the industry. Our research revealed that while there was information scattered around different websites that explained how the market worked, etc., there was no single source of truth about roles, activities, customers, products etc. So, the LMG is working to pull this together and house it all in one place - londoninsurancelife-lmg.com , so that we can present our market in the best possible way to the talent we want to attract. We also want to bring it to life with relatable role models and examples of the sorts of careers that young people can aspire to. So, we have set up a filming day to capture as many young professionals as possible in one day talking about what inspires them about working in the London Market.
When we have populated our website with engaging and compelling materials, we need to make young people aware of its existence. We will be investing in social media campaigns, campaigns with student magazines and direct advertising on campuses to reach the school leavers and graduates who are starting to look at what their next life stage might be.
But most of all we need to show that there are roles to be filled in the market. We currently have a steady flow of entry level roles from brokers and underwriters advertised on the website and on Instagram and we know that this has delivered successful candidates to market firms. But we want to show more to more people – so if you are looking for candidates, do contact us to help promote the role you are trying to fill.
The joy of digital engagement is that you get a lot of data on what gets traction and what gets ignored, so we will be able to measure success at a tactical level. But the greatest indicator of success will be if we can get to a time when the phrase “I fell into insurance” – heard so often from so many across the market - becomes a phrase of the past, instead replaced with “insurance was where I wanted to work”.
