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Jobs opening up in insurance industry

June 23, 2012 / Staff

Around the world we’re all still grappling with the after-effects of the financial crisis from several years ago. Now we have troubles with Greece and other countries in Europe to contend with, though we might finally be seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

That said, we are seeing some healthy trends as various industries get back on their feet. In the United States for example, record low mortgage rates have spurred job openings as banks have had to keep up with demand for refinancings. This has helped to offset some of the cutbacks in the financial services industry. While workers in this area won’t be seeing the huge bonuses from the last decade, these are still very desirable jobs.

The insurance industry also appears to be improving if you look at the news on jobs in insurance. InsuranceJobs.com recently announced that demand is still strong for insurance jobs.

Currently InsuranceJobs.com is showing nearly 5,000 new positions for insurance employment from hundreds of companies. Areas of the strongest demand from companies appear to be for insurance claims jobs, claims adjusters, insurance sales, insurance agents, and insurance customer support representatives. These type insurance career opportunities are coming from prominent insurance companies such as; AAA, Allstate, Farmers, Florida Blue, MAPFREE, UNUM, and USAA just to name a few.

Workers with solid office, computer, clerical and phone skills can do very well in this area, and these jobs are opening all around the world as well. In the UK for example you can check out insurance jobs with Direct Line Group. Professionalism is very important in this field, so make sure your resume is updated and that you’re prepared to interview well. These jobs are often best for workers who enjoy an office environment, yet there are many positions like insurance adjusters that can spend time out in the field. Look for positions that match your strengths and interests. If you’re good in math, perhaps an actuary job is right for you.

The insurance business will also be growing worldwide as emerging nations like China and India start consuming these services with the growth of their middle class, and US and British companies will likely be very active in trying to penetrate those markets, so insurance might also be an interesting field for workers interested in international business.

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The virtual classroom of the future is here now

June 20, 2012 / Staff

The idea of college kids congregating in libraries on college campuses will likely never go away, but a revolution in higher learning is underway that can shake up the university system in the United States and around the world.

The trend of putting college courses online for free is exploding, and the idea of a college education may never be the same. That’s probably a good thing, as the cost of a college education has been spiraling out of control. We believe that the emergence of self-education through free online tools will be one of the great trends of the 21st century.

Steve Klinsey is the founder and CEO of New Mountain Capital and has been very active in education reform for years. He has published a very interesting commentary in Baron’s discussing this topic.

The American Dream is increasingly blocked by steadily rising college costs, and America’s student debt stands at more than $1 trillion. Fortunately, the combination of readily available technology and a simple regulatory change could create a low-cost or even a no-cost alternative path toward a college degree. The edX program recently announced by MIT and Harvard points the way toward a massively open online course movement.
EdX is designed to make MIT and Harvard college courses widely available online, building on the MITx program that already offers MIT courses free of charge online to any student anywhere. EdX will support students’ learning and grade their work, and a certificate from the program will be granted for successful course completion. EdX is also offering to give its online-course-delivery software to other educational institutions that want to broadly distribute their courses.
Last fall, Stanford offered an introductory Artificial Intelligence course for free, online. It reported that 160,000 students, from high schoolers to retirees, enrolled from 175 countries, and 22,000 students completed the rigorous course.
Princeton, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and others are pursuing similar paths. The Open University system in the United Kingdom and Western Governors University in the U.S. have been pioneering this philosophy as well.
Digital technology can revolutionize the cost structure of education, just as it has for other forms of information. However, regulation needs to change to enable the advance, particularly in the area of accreditation.

He goes on to discuss ways that some sort of certificate of completion can be given to people who complete these courses online, and how the government can incentivize universities to come up with a standardized system to handle these certificates so that prospective employers and other universities can count on them.

This is yet another example of the tremendous power the the internet and social media. The exponential effect this can have on global learning is simply staggering and also very exciting.

Hopefully, the days of ridiculously priced college educations will be coming to an end.

Your Education

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Start-ups offer free college education

June 18, 2012 / Staff

The cost of college tuition is skyrocketing, so it’s not surprising that some entrepreneurs are trying to fill the void.

Technology start-ups are cracking into the higher education market and there pitch is an enticing one: A college education for anyone at almost no cost.
Sound to good to be true? The founders of tech start-ups behind this revolutionary idea say they have already had success with their models, but they say there needs to be more momentum if their idea is to succeed.
“The 99% should be protesting college campuses,” says Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford University artificial intelligence professor, who recently co-founded Udacity, a technology start-up dedicated to providing higher education at a very low cost.

Two companies doing this are Udemy and Udacity. The new trend is self-education with all of the tools out there, including free lectures on iTunes and Khan Academy.

Smart employers will start to figure this out as well, and I suspect in the future we’ll see job applicants will put a Self-Education section on their resumes. It shows initiative and prospective employers can always quiz applicants on what they learned for verification.

Your Education

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Rise of Remote Workers

June 13, 2012 / Staff

Here’s a cool infographic on the remote worker revolution. We’re seeing it with so many companies as more people want to work from home, and more companies are more than happy to accommodate them.

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work from home

How Businesses Are Getting Left Behind Because of Phone Numbers

June 13, 2012 / Staff

It would seem some well established businesses may be getting left behind simply because of the type of phone number they use. This may be a forgivable fault for a start-up or business in its nascence as they have not yet learned everything they need to know about how to build up a customer base, but the larger, international firms should never be making these mistakes.

It is bad enough these companies choose to use premium numbers for their customers to pay their bills but for a customer service line or even to join up with a brand, big companies cannot be forgiven for making these lines premium rate.

Free phone numbers bring extra custom; build an effective customer base, build up company consumer trust and increases brand awareness. It seems beyond the case of foolishness for big companies not to be embracing free telephone numbers.

In the UK for example, 0844 numbers are just as easy to install and run as the premium numbers and are readily available from resellers. So why do big companies still cling to their old ways? They must assess the pros and cons of the situation form a very warped view point. Those in charge of public relations at big corporations must not be able to see past the initial revenue gained through the phone callers who pay premium rates. This is a classic case of not being able to see the wood for the trees.

In actual fact, these companies will lose customers in the long run and ultimately the revenue they are attempting to so firmly grasp. The loss of custom though, will not only stem from the substandard customer service they are offering from premium rate phone numbers. What these people are failing to understand, is that if there is a free way to get in touch with a company, the customer will find it. Modern technology and the rise of social media have removed the wall between companies and consumers. There are now many free platforms for your (unhappy) customers to voice their opinions about your company and the reputation of a brand can be tarnished very easily. It would be a much better idea for the big companies to have a quiet, free phone call with their customers and deal with an issue before it goes viral and is splashed over social media.

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