According to a former Microsoft engineer, young job candidates with technology backgrounds are not enamored with the idea of joining the insurance industry.
Executive Summary
THIRD ARTICLE IN A SERIES Continuing our series, "Who's Winning the Talent War: Startups or Incumbents?" Carrier Management reviews some of the ideas that professionals from technology firms shared about the younger generation's view of the insurance industry and about what it takes to keep innovators on board at technology startups. In the second article of the series, "What It's Like to Work for an InsurTech," Carrier Management spoke to insurance professionals who have worked in both the traditional and InsurTech parts of the property/casualty insurance industry about their career paths and job experiences. The first article, "Are InsurTechs Losing the Talent War? It's Debatable," teed up a debate about relative talent levels at InsurTechs and incumbents and provided recruiter views of trends in talent movement.Tammarrian Rogers, a software engineering director for Snap, the camera and social media company, didn’t make any distinction between established carriers and insurance technology startups when she spoke at a webinar titled “Finding, Recruiting and Retaining the Right Talent,” presented by InsurTech Indenseo in April. Rogers, who worked at Microsoft for 23 years prior to leading several engineering teams at Snap, said that young people with technology skills need to find a meaningful connection to what they’re working on—”there has to be a purpose.” While insurance veterans might argue that purposeful employment is a cornerstone of the industry, that’s not how young technologists see it, she reported.
To support that perception, Rogers shared the view of a mentor who she queried about choosing between a tech industry and any technology position in the insurance industry:
“I’d stay with the tech company mainly because I know insurance companies tend to be less progressive than tech companies. They’ve been around longer, and they likely have a more corporate feel to them. Also, they have a higher chance of donating to or supporting immoral people or causes,” Rogers said, quoting her mentor.
