In 1966, Ronald Reagan shifted from actor to politician as California’s 33rd governor, later becoming known as the Great Communicator. Reagan leveraged transferable skills to change careers.
While I’m no movie star or politician, dramatic career moves are something I appreciate. I have worn many professional hats in fields like engineering, tax management, and, now, insurance. I’ve also worn a few pairs of dancing shoes that helped, as well, and continue to teach dance and run a successful studio while working in the insurance sector. With President Reagan’s experience as something of a guide, I also brought forward talents and abilities learned in my other professional incarnations to help launch and sustain a successful insurance career.
After several years of growing my career and helping develop Across America’s talent profile, I have found looking outside the industry for those with varied backgrounds like my own can bring talented, multifaceted individuals with fresh perspectives into insurance. As the industry struggles to fill a continually growing talent gap, thinking outside the box may be an answer.
See also: What's Causing the Insurance Talent Shortage
Dancing My Way Into Insurance
We often hear insurance is a relationship business. For those of us who find – or are recruited to – the industry after careers elsewhere, there is no truer statement.
I was discovered on the dance floor. I had been teaching dance classes for years. One of my students, a lovely and graceful young woman, was the daughter of insurance entrepreneur Harish Kapur. During her time as one of my students, our families became friends. A few years after, in a casual conversation, Harish mentioned he was looking to hire someone with executive potential. He had built a successful model by bringing in non-insurance professionals with an acumen for business and then training them on the nuances of the industry. While I did – and still do – love dancing, I felt I had been searching for my professional home for years. With a background in engineering and tax management, I wondered if he would consider taking a chance on me. What could I bring to the table?
Transferable Skills
Insurance is an industry where many skills can translate and prove useful. Math, proficiency with technology, administrative talent, actuarial science, sales ability, management experience and other skills all feed into a range of roles within insurance, not just as nice-to-haves but rather as critical, backbone requirements. As the industry continues to experience a talent drain as Baby Boomers retire, candidates with nontraditional experiences outside of insurance can provide a bountiful well of potential talent.
Working in different industries, I was an example of that nontraditional, potential insurance professional with transferable skills highly sought by the industry. With a degree in engineering, I am hard-wired to solve problems. When faced with any task, I need to understand the root of the assignment and create my own workflow rather than just following a predetermined process.
Working at my family’s powder metallurgy unit in India, I managed the accounting and led the company’s quality control over both our products and the company’s workflow processes. That experience taught me the value of communicating clearly in different languages and dialects because our workforce and vendor partners were made up of diverse talent pools, including individuals of varied education and experiences. I learned the importance of making my interactions personal and meeting people where they want to be met.
Having supplemental degrees in industrial and tax management gave me an appreciation for and an ability to implement actuarial science practices, which helped me further develop an aptitude for solving problems.
And, of course, there was dancing. I have taught traditional Indian dance for decades, concurrent with my various day jobs. My experience as a dance teacher has helped me refine my appreciation for entrepreneurship, as well as the importance of time management, patience, flexibility, empathy and nonverbal communication.
A New Routine
Once Harish understood my skills were not restricted to dance, he saw how my experiences would serve as a foundation for a role in insurance. I had transferable skills critical to the industry. If I could be taught well and diligently strive to learn the ins and outs of insurance, it could work. He took a chance and hired me.
The hours worked well for me back then, as they do now, and afforded me the opportunity to continue to pursue my first love – dance – while also balancing my family responsibilities. Also, I’d come to know Harish and his family well. They valued hard work and intelligence and prioritized family while also bringing a little fun to everything they did. It was the right move for me.
My first official role with Across America Insurance was as an executive assistant, later becoming an executive manager, where I worked on tax management and operational tasks for the company. As I continued to prove myself, I earned additional responsibilities that provided a crash course in the more technical side of the industry. I learned the fundamentals of insurance, thanks to company leaders who allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of industry definitions and the technical processes.
I also learned processes and procedures on various action items such as filing taxes. I learned the claims workflow, learned to understand how to identify and implement technology to cut down on redundancies, and more. My background, the training and support of our leadership team, and old-fashioned, real-world experience helped me grow my insurance career from executive assistant to my current role as vice president of captive operations for Across America.
I remember one of my first big projects with the company was to manage a coverholder program with Lloyds of London. That work taught me a great deal about the industry. It can be both straightforward and complicated, which for me offers the kind of challenge I enjoy. I appreciated that kind of environment as a dance instructor and dance studio owner. Even back in my family’s business, marrying complexity and clear process always captured my imagination. But it was insurance that brought it all together for me.
To this day, I regularly tap into the skills I learned in my former careers to train others, interact with clients, streamline operations, and more. Working for an organization that values outside perspectives and sees the benefit these skills can bring to a business and the people it serves makes the work even more rewarding.
See also: 7 Ways to Innovate With Purpose
Finding My Stride
Today, I work with captives, existing and potential reinsurers and other servicing partners. Among other things, this work demands careful application of the communication skills I honed while leading the quality management certification and overall quality control of products and process flows at my family’s powder metallurgy business. The ability to translate complex products and services into human terms has been key to my success and in building the relationships. Building and maintaining those relationships as the market tightens, something I learned to do when I opened my dance studio, is paramount to ensuring you don’t just secure a transaction but rather continuing business, even in challenging times.
My additional degree in tax management helped train me to think as a problem solver and has allowed me to develop procedures and systems that not only helped me in my earlier days at Across America for filing state taxes but continues to serve as important training for newer team members.
Of course, my teaching skills also remain invaluable as we continue to welcome new talent. Across America has made it a priority to hire beyond the insurance industry. While that practice has brought a wealth of perspectives, it can also require training customized to meet everyone on their level, understanding their perspectives and finding the right fit within the organization. Identifying and training the next generation of talent for Across America and the insurance industry has been a learning experience of its own that continues to help me grow professionally.
Building the Future
Companies across our industry can follow this model to success, as well, particularly as insurers struggle to attract qualified candidates. Consider thinking outside the traditional realm of insurance for your next hire. While a prospect’s job title may not appear relevant, certain core competencies should be apparent, including:
- Patience: As a newcomer to insurance, your new employee may have years of existing experience in a different industry. Keep an open mind. You would be surprised to see what skills end up being relevant to insurance.
- Asking Questions: When adapting to a new industry, there will be knowledge gaps. As your employees identify what they don’t know, it is important to find talent that can put pride aside and ask questions. Keep doors open. Questions from all employees should be welcomed. This philosophy helps eliminate misunderstandings.
- Research Capabilities: Independent research will not mirror the in-depth insights of a colleague with years of experience; however, it will help your employees enter the conversation armed with some foundational information. Finding employees who take the time to learn what they can on their own is important. It showcases a willingness to take initiative and adapt quickly.
Job seekers today face the dual challenge of presenting the right characteristics to employers while seeking organizations with core values that match their own. Characteristics that new employees have found enticing at Across America include curiosity and an interest in helping employees grow, an openness to learning and acceptance of honest feedback from all levels, as well as strong market knowledge of the entire insurance industry and market overall. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have found insurance, and more so for the work culture that helped me become a skilled insurance professional.
Recruiting the next generation of talent is a challenge with solutions in reach. Recruiting individuals for their unique characteristics and willingness to learn rather than strictly insurance-specific experience can foster fresh ideas and perspectives to help insurance innovate and move into the future. We simply need to think on our feet about going beyond the usual practices
