Speaker: Ashley SIlva, AVP, Talent Acquisition
Ashley SIlva: My name is Ashley Silva. I am the AVP of Talent Acquisition at Global Atlantic Financial Group and we won the 2024 Recruiting Excellence Award.
Talk briefly about your program and what sparked you to develop it.
Global Atlantic Financial Group hosts a summer internship program where we hire about 65 students across the company in a variety of different roles where we expose them to real work, real projects, as well as DE&I initiatives, exposure to senior leadership, social events, networking, volunteerism. And this program was designed to create a pipeline of future early career talent into our firm, as well as exposing students to what it's like to work in insurance and financial services, as well as what's possible within a career in this space.
What were you trying to achieve? Did you achieve what you expected?
Global Atlantic is looking to accomplish attracting students to the insurance and financial services space. We are looking to bring on top talent into our organization and convert them into full-time employees to add value to our organization while we help them grow their careers. We're really excited about the future of our internship program and the impact that it's creating across the organization. And that story is really just beginning.
Were there any surprises—any results you weren’t expecting?
One thing that I am really proud about our recruiting efforts for the internship program is how many referrals we get from previous interns that have either started full-time or some of them actually take other jobs and were so impressed with our program that they referred their friends and colleagues to intern with us. The other thing that I think is really exciting as we continue to build our program is the brand recognition that we're starting to see on campus. So we're starting to see students that are noticing us and are recognizing our brand and are excited to engage with us.
How did you develop this program? What processes did you use?
When I think about our early career recruiting strategy, it's about building meaningful partners. So when I think about the campuses that we visit and the relationships that we've built with career services and students and faculty, it's really about putting in the time and attention, and focus into building those relationships. So students are really looking for employers that are engaging with them on campus that genuinely want to get to know them and their career goals and ambitions. And so we really built our recruiting strategy and our program around building those meaningful connections and relationships and evaluating them to ensure that we have a return on investment, that we're attracting the right students. And so when it starts with meaningful relationships, we've seen a great return on our time and investment.
From your perspective, what was the single most important outcome of this program?
Ashley SIlva: The most important outcome our recruiting efforts have had on our early career programs has been diversity. We've been able to attract diverse talent into our early career programs, bringing in different backgrounds, different perspectives, all while making our company better and our culture stronger.
If someone wants to replicate your program, what do they need to know upfront (the first steps to take, potential pitfalls to watch for)?
Ashley SIlva: If someone is looking to replicate Global Atlantic's success in the early career space, my suggestion would be to focus on the candidate experience, taking a look at your application process and how does that feel, looking at the touch points that take place throughout the process. How are your hiring managers engaged? What technologies are you using to help the candidates throughout the process? All of those things are really important to ensuring successful candidate engagement, how they feel about your brand and ultimately getting them on board at your organization.
