1. Talent Advantage™
Case Study
Finding Highly Specialized
Talent In Vast Numbers
Allstate “By using Recruiter as a With many companies, when an open position
is filled, the requisition is closed. But at Allstate,
Headquarters: Northbrook, Illinois true networking tool, as the quest for good Agents never ends. Even
Recruiting team: 30 when the sourcing and recruiting team reaches
LinkedIn Recruiter seats: 11
well as a recruiting tool, we its goals, the search continues.
Total employees: 38,000 get better candidates in These Agents and Personal Financial Represen-
Executive Summary front of our sales leaders.” tatives are the core of Allstate’s business—and
Allstate can’t operate at its best without them.
After almost two years of outsourcing to Susan Meehan, Senior Manager,
a third-party vendor, Allstate created a Talent Acquisition, Allstate
Finding Allstate’s Core Talent: The
new, internal Agent and Personal Financial Challenge
Representative sourcing team to fulfill its
Company Profile When it comes to appointing Agents and Per-
most specialized, critical hires. As a key
sonal Financial Representatives, Susan’s recruit-
factor in this decision, Allstate upgraded One of America’s most well-known insurance
ing team must satisfy some very specific criteria.
from five LinkedIn Recruiter seats to 11— companies, the Allstate Corporation provides
and gave a seat to every member of the 13 major types of insurance in the US and For starters, Allstate Agent candidates need
new team. The entire team now has Canada, including fire, property, casualty, life, to be independent, highly capable individuals
full access to Recruiter’s powerful search and auto. Allstate is a Fortune 100 company, who can own and operate their Allstate agency
and networking capabilities. headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. “like it is their own business,” Susan explains.
Susan Meehan is one of Allstate’s six Senior “They have an economic interest in that busi-
Talent Acquisition Managers. She has a direct ness, and they will need to invest in it” she says.
hand in making sure that her team of eight “[An Allstate agency] is not a franchise. They
new sourcers, and 30 recruiters, achieves its staff it, they help choose the location, they’re
numbers on a monthly basis. responsible for building that business. And then
they’re commissioned off of the business that
And in 2009, those eight sourcers and 30
they build.”
recruiters will be responsible for appointing
a total of 1,400 Agents and Personal Financial Then there are Allstate’s personal Financial
Representatives. That’s a minimum of 1,000 Representative Candidates.
new Agents, and at least 400 Personal Financial
Representatives.

2. “They have to come to us with experience and LinkedIn Recruiter: Delivering Easy to use yet highly efficient, ‘Team Projects’
results selling financial products,” Susan says. High-Quality Talent allows team members to save candidate
“They have to have their licenses. We verify three searches and relevant information to folders
An award-winning recruiting tool used by lead-
years’ worth of production income. And that pro- that the entire team can access. Most impor-
ing companies worldwide, LinkedIn Recruiter
duction income has to hit a minimum amount tantly, it also allows them to transfer that saved
gives corporate businesses unprecedented
before we can even consider the candidate.” data from one person to another.
access to LinkedIn’s database of over 40 million
members. With one new member joining every “You never want to lose that competitive intel-
“It Has To Be Perfect”
second, LinkedIn’s membership grows larger ligence,” Susan says. “You could potentially lose
Previously, Allstate had outsourced their and more valuable by the day, increasing the it if you weren’t able to transfer the historical
recruiting to a third-party vendor. However, odds that recruiters will find that exceptional information when someone leaves your team.”
in 2008, the sputtering economy—and a passive candidate they’re looking for. And because the Recruiter platform is so
new understanding of corporate and team
And when it comes to finding standout intuitive, Susan’s sourcers are already going in
needs—caused senior leaders to make a
candidates, Allstate understands that LinkedIn’s and exploring Recruiter on their own.
vital business decision.
unique ability to develop a trusted online “This morning, as I moved full project files over
They decided to take Allstate’s Agent and network—combined with Recruiter’s to the new sourcers, some of them already
Financial Representative recruiting back unmatched access to vast numbers of highly had gone in and were starting to work them,”
from that vendor, and build a new, internal specialized talent—can go a long way. she says. “Now that they can see it and go in
team of sourcers and recruiters specifically
and look at it, they’re going to start to use it.”
for those functions. Using The Networking Power Of
LinkedIn Recruiter “As an administrator, I take my [extra] InMails
“It’s not easy to convince someone, whether
and just roll those to my team. It’s also easy
they have $50,000 or $150,000 in the bank, to For Allstate, Recruiter was the first choice to
for me to pop into some of the open projects
invest that money in an insurance agency,” help Susan’s new team find these very special-
and see who’s using it well, and who I can
says Susan. “With this type of candidate, it has ized candidates. Due to her previous experience
ask to spend some more time on it. It’s a good
to be perfect, or they’re not going to continue with Recruiter’s innovative search and network-
supplement to the usage report that I get
to talk to us. So we’ve got to have the best ing capabilities, Susan is now teaching her team
each month.”
resources talking to them. And we just really to use the tool in two very effective ways.
felt that it needed to be an Allstater that was
First, “the sourcers go in and search for our “A True Networking Tool”
selling our opportunities.”
passive candidates based on some keywords,” Allstate is currently on track with the number
Susan explains. “So when we find great candi- of qualified agent and financial representative
Allstate Turns To LinkedIn
dates, we’re saying, ‘Hey, we have this opportu- candidates in their pipeline. They’re looking
Recruiter—Times Eight
nity, here’s a bit about it, are you interested?’” forward to further harnessing the power of
As a key factor in building their team, Susan’s
“The other way is actually leveraging some of those eight Recruiter seats.
team went from one LinkedIn Recruiter seat for
those same candidates found through LinkedIn “Between September of 2008 and the end of
a single sourcer in 2008, to eight in February
Recruiter, and talking to them. ‘This might not 2008, and what we’ve already achieved this
2009— bringing Allstate’s total to 11 seats and
be ideal for you, but do you know anybody year, our numbers are already much higher than
guaranteeing full LinkedIn Recruiter access to
who’d be really good and would be interested?’ they were last year,” says Susan. “We’re confident
every sourcer on her team.
A lot of our sourcers also use the different that we’re going to see the lift. We wouldn’t
“When we got ready to build our new team, as Groups that they belong to in LinkedIn, and have signed up eight more users if we didn’t
we were building the strategy, we said, ‘We’ve network the opportunity that way.” believe that.”
got to include LinkedIn in that strategy,’” Susan
says. “We had one person using it, and they said Highly Valuable Collaboration Tools ”By using Recruiter as a true networking tool,
they couldn’t live without it. So what could we as well as a recruiting tool, we get better
As the LinkedIn Recruiter administrator for her
get if we had eight people using it?” candidates in front of our sales leaders,” she
team, Susan is a particular fan of Recruiter’s
concludes. “LinkedIn lets us take the reins
Allstate’s managers chose those extra Recruiter ‘Team Projects’ folder feature.
back into our own hands.”
seats for a very good reason. ”It’s the success
of Allstate,” Susan explains. “If we don’t have
Agents, we can’t write new business.”
talent.linkedin.com | sales@linkedin.com
Please contact your sales manager or account manager for
more information.
Copyright © 2009 LinkedIn Corporation. All rights reserved.
10-LCS-016 0509