By Liza | No Comments
We want to clear up a few common misconceptions about cover letters.
Yes we do read them.
A cover letter is your introduction to your experience and to you personally. In it you should tell us why you want the job, why you are suitable for that role plus highlight any achievements that are relevant to the role.
You may roll your eyes with what we are about to tell you and say “yes I do that already.” However so many people do not get the basics right, so covering these off may just get you across the line when we may have overlooked your resume.
Here are a few things that will impress us in your cover letter.
1) You tell us why you want the role we have advertised.
This tells us you have given some thought to your application and why you are suitable. It does show us that you are sincere in your approach.
2) You are brief.
We are not saying this because we are not interested in you. We are. But being realistic, if we receive hundreds of applications, we appreciate brevity and a layout that is easy to read.
Please limit your cover letters to one page, and use short paragraphs. That way we are not working late into the night to get through applications and can actually action yours quickly.
3) You address some of the key skills we have requested in the advertisement.
This tells us you have read the advertisement and are not just sending your resume off to everyone. You can use the scatter gun approach, but you may only succeed if your resume “hits the mark” in terms of the exact skills we require.
If you do send your resume everywhere without much contemplation, you can risk sounding vague when we call you. From our perspective there is nothing more disconcerting than a candidate having no idea about the role when we call them.
4) You have proof read your letter.
Now we know people are not perfect. We’re not perfect. Sometimes typos slip past even the most careful of eyes. What we would say however is that if you claim to have advanced word processing skills and strong attention to detail, and have a cover letter with three different fonts, we will not take that any further.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Karalyn | No Comments
Many Aussies struggle to sell themselves in interview. I don’t know whether it’s because of the tall poppy syndrome here, where people think that talking about their strengths is chest-beating. I do think accounting and insurance people typically struggle with this. After all, many people in both professions are more used to talking in technical terms rather than their professional achievements.
An interview however, is one place that you should do some selling of your skills. This reason is really basic. If you do not have confidence in who you are or what you do, there is no way you will inspire confidence in others.
Behavioural interviews have been popular for years. Mastering how to present your examples in a behavioural interview will do half the sales job for you – without you actually having to tell the interviewer how terrific you are.
So no chest-beating involved. Here’s what I mean.
In a behavioural interview, you need to give a specific example – for example, a person, time, project, task or thing you did. You structure your answer with the situation/task, the action, and the result. That’s the STAR approach.
A good behavioural interview starts with self-awareness. You understand what you said or did that made you successful in the example you choose to present.
Many people however, fall down here. They will just tell the interviewer what they did. But there is no point just launching into an example or just providing detail about what you did. You also need to tell the interviewer why this particular task was meaningful and challenging for you.
When you describe the scenario, think about and talk about:
- why you are presenting that example?
- what was at stake, in the project or completing the task?
- why did you personally find the task challenging?
- what did you feel like when you were confronted with that situation?
To sell your examples you also need to pick examples that are vivid for you. These are the examples where you can easily remember details – perhaps this is because you did face a challenge in completing the task.
If you pick an example where your face lights up, you can remember detail and you explain some of the challenges, when you talk about the actions you took after that, the interviewer is more likely to think every action you took was “amazing.”
You have then sold your skills without any chest beating.
No fake superlatives needed!
By Karalyn | No Comments
Last year the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year was “Googleganger.”
Do you know what this means?
A Googleganger is a person with the same name as oneself, whose online references are mixed with one’s own among search results for one’s name.
My Googleganger is a gnome rescuer. In 2009 my rescue operations made headlines in the Penrith Press.
As people post, re-tweet, and share all over the place, you can’t have complete control over how you appear on Google. So it’s advisable Google stalking your Googleganger every so often. You never know who might pop up.
If your Googleganger has some unpleasant habits, here’s a really quick fix.
LinkedIn has a high Google ranking. Therefore your profile reference should appear in a Google search. Go into LinkedIn and check that your headline appears in searches. Include a line about what makes you unique. For ideas take a look at this post by LinkHumans on creative LinkedIn headlines.
When it comes to your good name, there are many things to be mindful of on social media. I’d tell you about these but I’m busy reading the speech my Googleganger made at annual dinner of the Blue Mountains Rotary Club in 2008.
It’s a cracker.
By Liza | No Comments
As we enter a truly global age in communication, chances are you may face an interview over Skype.
Skype interviews are a little weird. Yes you can see the person, and we all know communication is about the visual, but are these interviews the same as a face to face interview? And what should you do to prepare?
Be a little bit patient.
No matter how good the communication, you will find that sometimes it’s a lot slower. You will also find that it is interrupted. Try not to pull faces when this happens. It’s a good idea to wait until the other party stops speaking before you launch into your answer. In fact, that’s good advice for any interview come to think about it.
Dress professionally.
It’s probably tempting to wear your newsreader outfit – with your pyjama bottoms hidden under the desk. Please don’t do this. It’s simple really. If you dress professionally you will believe you are professional. That, we think, is an important confidence boost.
Meet people face to face.
Yes in a Skype interview you can see the other person, but you do want to see where your desk will be, who you will be working with, and who you will be reporting to. You want to be able to see that this will be a place in which you perceive that you are secure. You won’t have that sense if you cannot see the workplace.
Turn off all distractions.
You may be having this interview at home, which means other phones may ring, or your spouse, parent or child may call out and offer you a cup of tea. Shut the door. Turn off the phone. You want to appear completely professional.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Liza | No Comments
Here at Enigma HR we want to contribute to the broader discussion around skills shortages. Coming from a hiring perspective we see a lot of things that occur that actually make everyone’s life difficult. We also see a lot of innovative ideas. This piece is a summarised version of an article we wrote for Riskebusiness. This is the newsletter of Australian Life Underwriters and Claims Association.
We wrote about the skills shortages in the life insurance industry, but some of the messages apply to other areas of the insurance industry. Here are a few things we think the industry needs to consider when it comes to tackling skills shortages.
Firstly, when you’re hiring challenge your ideas of “years of experience.”
To us it’s a lazy way of expressing what’s required in a role. Some people are brilliant after two year’s experience. Some people have 5 year’s experience and still do not achieve a high level of competency.
When you are hiring ask this instead. What is the level of competency that someone needs to have, to successfully perform in a role? What would be a demonstration of successful behaviour? For claims roles, for example, is it the case load they finalise and the time that it takes to complete this task? If you are in a large insurer, you’ll probably have a lot of this information scoped out in position descriptions and performance review documents. Use it for recruitment purposes.
Secondly, widen your gene pool of available applicants.
Think about other insurance sectors as a starting point. There are many examples of people who have successfully transferred from workers compensation and personal injury insurance to life insurance. They already have an understanding of the medical terminology required for life insurance claims.
What we have found however, in this example, is that many life insurers do not offer equitable salaries to professionals transferring from workers compensation. All too often we hear, “we like the candidate, but because they do not have life insurance experience we will offer them less than what they are seeking.” From our experience as recruitment consultants, we do not see the skills gap as wide as that salary gap suggests.
Thirdly, stop doing the “informal reference check” based on hearsay.
Here’s a common scenario. A candidate comes to see us. We interview them at length. We build trust with them. We understand their strengths, weaknesses and reasons for leaving. We talk about where they would like to work next. Then we reference check them. We are not naïve. We know when there is a problem which we need to explore. We cover this in our questions and in our references.
Only when we are satisfied that our candidate is suitable, will we present them to a client. However, there have been many times where we have done this, where the prospective employer will get on the phone to someone who has worked with this applicant’s employer for an “informal reference check” – then refused to meet with our candidate.
We know we cannot stop this. But if you are tempted to do an “informal reference check,” we suggest that you consider that there are many sides to many issues that happen at work – not just the employer’s version. You are only hearing one perspective. If you choose to recruit like this, you lose the right to complain about skills shortages in your industry.
Another big issue in the life insurance industry is poaching. If you are tempted to do this, there are a few things you need to think about if you offer someone with experience, the big dollars to lure them. Yes, money is a short term motivator for a move. In the longer term however, people value such things as autonomy, mastery and purpose in their work.
If you cannot offer elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose within your organisation, you will not retain the staff you’ve paid top dollar for. What you have done is contributed to spiralling salaries in your profession, paying people far more money than their skills really justify.
We also urge you to take a look at some recruiting practices in the general insurance industry.
One of the privileges we have being in consulting is that we see many people. We see many work practices. We see many employers across the insurance industry. This means we have an understanding of best practice. One of the things the general insurance industry does very well is create career pathways for people without insurance experience.
Finally, we also suggest also that you think about your internal support processes.
What induction, training and mentoring could you provide to up-skill people with limited insurance experience? There are some in the life and general insurance industry who do this very well, but on the whole, we think the industry could do better. A strong support system serves a few purposes. It helps people who have made the move. It positions you as an employer of choice. And you can promote this in your advertisements to entice people cautious about making a move.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Karalyn | 2 Comments
Here’s my soap box rant on words I see and hear that niggle at me a little. These are my pet peeves only. You could me picky, so you’d better tell me if you agree or disagree, in the comment section down below….
“I’d consider that…”
If someone says in interview “I’d consider a lower level job,” I hear: “I’ll jump ship at the next better offer.”
It’s better to tell someone why that particular job suits you right now.
“Dealing with”
Spoken interviews and used in resumes – “dealing with” customers, staff, people etc.
On resumes you need to use more action words. See our previous post here.
In conversation it sounds like my Dad when he’s mad about something. He’s dealing with Telstra, “dealing with” the Local Council, “dealing with” his local member of government.
“Facilitate”
This always sounds a bit passive aggressive – usually used when someone wants to control something or direct a result, but doesn’t want to be obvious about it. Look in their passive aggressive tool kit and you may find enough post-it notes to start a cold war.
This is term is also frequently used incorrectly.
In interview I once heard someone say they were facilitating communication. When I probed a little deeper I found out that they had made a telephone call.
I facilitated the end of the interview after that.
“Outcome”
I like using the word “outcome” when I’m not really sure what to say. I can sound like I’ve achieved something, but I can be vague about what.
“In relation to”
Stick with about…
“In terms of”
Padding and filler. It either is or it isn’t!
This article first appeared on the www.interviewiq.com.au website.
By Liza | No Comments
Insurance jobs in Sydney – demand is still strong!
The start of the employment year (that’s anytime after Australia Day) is always a good time to reflect on the year that was, and put our thinking caps on about where the demand exists for insurance jobs.
If you read the economics headlines you would assume that disaster predicted for Europe spells doom and gloom in our employment market overall. However we all know that headlines are written as extreme attention grabbers and the real employment picture is far more nuanced than that.
In our assessment of the employment market for insurance jobs, the forecast is not all gloomy. We’d say it’s patchy with a few rain showers over the coming year. Here’s why.
What is the long term outlook for insurance jobs?
For insurance jobs over the long term the Australian government’s Job Outlook provides some solid information. This website presents data from various industry sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics. (Insurance is grouped as a profession in with money market and statistical clerks.) So the picture for just insurance jobs is probably slightly rosier than what they state.
Turnover in these occupations (that’s people leaving the occupation) is about par with other professions. Unemployment is on par with other professions. While they rate prospects for growth for the next five years to be slight, the better news is that the industry is expected to grow at 24.8% over the next 20 years.
Where are insurance jobs in Sydney?
We’d agree with the long term outlook we’ve talked about above.
We recruit mainly in Sydney. Compared to 2010 last year we saw strong growth in insurance claims roles at intermediate level across the general insurance sector and across all product lines with a focus on personal lines and personal injury insurance. By intermediate level we mean the claims decision makers. So that’s the people who accept, evaluate and manage the insurance claims processes for a portfolio of clients.
With climate change predicted to increase the frequency of extreme weather events such as bushfires and floods, we see the demand for insurance claims roles increasing moderately.
Why do we say moderately and not dramatically?
With the recent spate of natural disasters, the cost to the industry has been huge. While companies may not feel the impact immediately as they have reinsurance, the longer term cost as reinsurance arrangements are renegotiated will be in increased premiums. The insurance industry is looking to reduce costs so we are now seeing some large insurers outsourcing administration and claims roles off shore, and some staff freezes.
Is this a long term trend? Who knows!
While there is an immediate cost off the bottom line for staffing costs, companies that have outsourced large scale services have often found that their clients complain. Given that clients who make claims are very often stressed we could reasonably expect that they may receive more complaints. Insurance is a grudge purchase. The only time people evaluate the service they have purchased is when they use it. So a poor experience at claims time could well translate into a higher rate of customer attrition.
While the relationship between customers that insurance companies have and the customers that they want is complicated, any large scale outsourcing may actually backfire and insurance jobs may return to Australia at some point in the future.
Jobs in Workers Compensation insurance claims have increased.
In other insurance sectors we see steady demand in Workers Compensation roles as a statutory insurance class. There has been an increase in the volume of Workers Compensation claims. While insurers are doing their best to provide a manageable caseload for their staff, most candidates are ready to gravitate to another line of insurance, and are prepared to compromise on salary to get the right role.
With the strong demand for outstanding claims professionals and a shortage of candidate supply we suggest that insurers and claims management companies look at both their salary bands and retention strategies to prevent attrition. There is still a demand for insurance underwriters, but the higher demand is for insurance claims staff. Quality claims professionals are finally receiving the attention they deserve in the employment market.
If you would like to discuss your staffing requirements or your next career move please give us a call – (02) 8221 0553. We don’t mind saying it – we’re experts in this field!
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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