According to U.S. News and World Report, things are looking up for the class of 2012. Employers say they plan to hire 9.5 percent more graduates this year than 2011. With the steadily increasing number of college graduates entering the workforce, Reagan Consulting conducted "The Young Producer Study" to investigate recruitment and selection of younger men and women for sales positions. This study specifically deals with the insurance industry, but the findings can apply to various positions because the younger generation is crucial to future leadership and productivity of every organization.
The "Successful Young Producers" of the study are individuals under the age of 30 who were effectively recruited and selected by insurance firms. Understanding and analyzing these top young producers can give us a better understanding of how to successfully recruit, select, develop and retain young and successful individuals.
Let's look at the Successful Young Producers' academics. It's no surprise that almost all of the 91 participating successful young producers are college graduates, and a good 14 percent have post-graduate degrees. Seventy-five percent of these young producers were business majors with business administration and management being the most popular area of study. On average, they maintained a strong "B+" during college, and showed to be very involved on campus. Campus involvement is a great trait to look for when recruiting and selecting new talent because it shows balance, task management and leadership skills. These are essential characteristics in the workplace! Successful young producers also have no trouble multi-tasking: in college, over half were involved in two or more campus organizations, worked and still managed to maintain above a 3.0 GPA.
To gain an even more in-depth understanding of the successful young producers, they were further evaluated by the ProfileXT™, a total person assessment that measures: thinking and reasoning styles, behavioral traits and occupational interests. From their assessment reports, here are some general skills and traits of these successful young producers:
- They are relatively quick thinkers and easily grasp new concepts, which are great traits when it comes to coaching and development because they're more flexible with the way they receive instruction and training.
- They tend to have exceptional verbal skills. Most successful young producers are very effective communicators, even under high levels of stress.
- They are sociable and have moderately high energy. These behavior traits are beneficial in the workplace environment and demonstrate drive and ambition.
- They are fairly independent. In addition to being good communicators and social, these young individuals enjoy working independently and can make sound decisions and judgments on their own.
- So, when recruiting and selecting new young hires, it's helpful to identify the traits of your successful hires and look for these in your new applicants.
We invite you to test drive our ProfileXT assessment to demonstrate how to take the guesswork out of your selection and hiring practices. | 
