保诚集团招聘玩出新花样

    达里尔•汤普森是风险管理及再保险公司怡安（Aon）的会计高管，工作在曼哈顿，安家在纽约州白原市郊，每天都要往返于两地之间，糜费时日，苦不堪言。“没时间多陪陪8岁的儿子，我很难过，”汤普森说。“我想在时间安排方面拥有更多的自主权。”

    到了2010年，他从在保诚集团（Prudential）工作的朋友那里得知，该公司从前一年就已经开始使用一种独特的招聘方式。该计划名为职业发展项目（Career Development Program，简称CDP），求职者可以在保持现有工作的同时参加为期6个月以在线方式为主的培训，还可以自行调整进度，目的是获得认证寿险代理和财务顾问所需的专业资质。

    汤普森决定试一试，最终他在2011年4月离开怡安，成为保诚的全职员工。作为资深的财产及意外险经纪人，又拥有金融学的MBA学位，汤普森看似在培训人员中高人一筹，但他自己并不这么认为。他说：“项目里的很多同伴原来从事文科工作，比如教师和乐手。”那么新的工作是否称心如意呢？“绝对的。其实现在工作时间更长了，但灵活性大得多，”他说。“我就是后悔没有早点跳槽。”

    2009年的时候，“职业发展项目”一开始只是小规模的实验，但效果实在太好了，现在已成为保诚招聘财务专家的唯一方式，截至目前已有约3,400人完成了培训。卡罗琳•菲尼是保诚主管代理分销的新任总裁，她说：“我们之前的招聘方式非常传统，就是面试、录用、培训的流程。”

    “经理们非常喜欢现在的方式，因为这让他们在入职前就能观察到每个求职者投入和尽职的程度，”她进一步说。“通过整体的培训过程，可以清楚地分辨出哪些人积极投入，哪些人真正‘明了’销售业务，哪些人充满工作热情。从中得到的信息比任何面试都多得多。”

    但是，中途退出者所占的比例也高达60%，因为保诚所要求（并支付费用）的培训包括课程学习、考试、评估和练习，绝不轻松。“我们双方都可以在某个时刻做出决定，不再继续，”菲尼说。“通过这种方式，我们能提早发现问题，免得不合适的人入职之后要么辞职，要么被炒。”“职业发展项目”其实就是在求职者入职之前，给公司和求职者双方一个互相适应的机会，菲尼称这个项目的雇佣成本比公司的传统雇佣方式低得多，主要原因就是员工流动率减少了约40%.

    对于也想尝试这类招聘方式的公司，菲尼有什么建议呢？“我们学到的一个经验就是不要跳过任何步骤，”她说。“我们列出了一个详细的清单，规定求职者必须完成的任务。然后严令主事的分部经理不得放过任何一项，因为每一步都有各自的作用。”

    对于顺利通过考核的求职者，保诚还会提供培训、营销手段及其它资源，帮助新员工开设代理办事处。麦克•潘在两年前完成了“职业发展项目”培训，在布鲁克林中国城附近的多元化社区开设了一个保诚办事处。这位以前的餐馆老板认为这是（独立性和公司支持）两方面的完美结合。他说：“自己给自己当老板，但同时又能得到很多支持，比完全独立强得多。”

    “不用朝九晚五地工作。自己掌握时间，甚至能自己控制自己的收入潜力，”他进一步说。“要想多赚钱，只需更努力地工作。”

    As an account executive at risk management and reinsurance firm Aon, Darryl Thompson made a time-consuming daily trek between Manhattan and his home in suburban White Plains, N.Y. "I was unhappy about not spending enough time with my eight-year-old son," Thompson says. "I wanted more control over my own schedule."

    Then, in 2010, a friend who worked for Prudential told him about an unusual recruiting method the company had launched the year before. Called the CDP, for Career Development Program, it allows people to stay in their current jobs throughout six months of training -- mostly online, and at the candidates' own pace -- to earn the professional designations required to become a certified life insurance agent and financial advisor.

    Thompson decided to give it a try, and ended up quitting Aon (AON) to join Prudential (PRU) full-time in April 2011. As a seasoned property-and-casualty broker with an MBA in finance, Thompson might seem to have an edge over most who take Prudential's training, but he says not. "Many of my colleagues in the program were liberal-arts types like teachers and musicians," he says. Has the career change worked out the way he hoped? "Absolutely. I work even longer hours now, but I have much more flexibility," he says. "I wish I could have done this years ago."

    Prudential launched the CDP in 2009 as a small-scale experiment, but it's worked so well that it's now the only way the company hires new financial professionals, some 3,400 of whom have done the training so far. "The way we used to hire people was much more the traditional method of interviewing them, hiring them, and then training them," says Caroline Feeney, Prudential's newly appointed president of agency distribution.

    "Our managers like this approach a lot better, because it shows them clearly how committed and conscientious each candidate is before that person is hired," she adds. "As candidates go through the training, you can see very clearly who's committed and motivated, who really 'gets' the sales aspect of the business, who's enthusiastic and who isn't. It tells you volumes more than any job interview can."

    The dropout rate is high. Roughly 60% of candidates don't make it through the demanding combination of course work, exams, assessments, and exercises Prudential requires (and pays for). "Either they decide somewhere along the way, or we do, that it just isn't going to work out," Feeney says. "But this way, we find out early, before we bring them on board and they end up quitting or being fired." By letting the company test-drive candidates, and vice versa, before they're added to the payroll, Feeney says the CDP costs much less than the company's old hiring method -- largely because it has chopped turnover by about 40%.

    What advice can Feeney offer any other employer who might want to try a similar approach? "One thing we've learned since we started this is that it's important not to skip any steps," she says. "We've put together a detailed checklist of things candidates have to do, and we urge the managers who run the program in our branch offices not to compromise on any of them, because each step matters."

    For those who make the cut, Prudential provides coaching, marketing expertise, and other resources to help newbies get their agencies up and running. Former restaurateur Mike Pan sees that as the best of two worlds. "You're running your own business, but with a lot more support than just being out there on your own," says Pan, who started up a Prudential office in a diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn's Chinatown after completing the CDP two years ago.

    "It's not a 9-to-5 job. You control your own hours, and also your own income potential," he adds. "If you want to make more money, you just work harder."