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Hi,  I just found this site today.  I have left the financial biz (mortgage - for obvious reasons). I know that I enjoy dealing with people.  I love knowing I am doing something to help them.  I have decided to start my own business.  With over 7 years of sales experience I want a business that I can still have that connection with clients. I have gone back and forth on 2 different businesses.  The first is insurance.  This is very close to the things that I really liked about the mortgage biz....I am just wondering if the insurance industry is going to be, or is as stagnant as the mortgage biz.  The other biz is healthcare recruiting.  I was drawn to this because I could still work with the public, in the healthcare industry - which we know is an industry that is in need.  I have done my due diligence, and like them both.  At this point I am looking for opinions. 

 

Thanks! 

I`d go with healthcare recruiting.

Insurance offers two problems, in my opinion. The first is fundamental. When you buy insurance, you`re gambling that you are going to have a catastrophic failure in your life. The insurance company is betting you`ll succeed and have no problems whatsoever. The logic is that you`re initializing a life that you already believe is going to fail. People are starting to get this, and are taking another look at "living by the failure credo."

Secondly, insurance to many people in a difficult financial situation is considered a luxury. It`s sold on a fear-based methodology, regardless of the pitch leaning toward comfort and security. It begins with an assumption of fear and terror. Even so, when times are tough, insurance against even tougher times drops in the priority list. Witness the increasing number of people without health insurance.

But the healthcare industry is being slammed. With malpractice costs skyrocketing, and the spectre of so-called universal healthcare (aka socialized medicine), physicians are making choices about leaving the business. With the physicians goes the entire healthcare industry.

Nursing is as bad as academia, where the "old guard" doesn`t want to lose power to the younger, more educated, and more modern upstarts. The threat of losing one`s license over alleged malfeasance rests on a "guitly until proven innocent" premise.

Nobody wants to take the increasing risks of being ruined in todays lawsuit-happy society, so people are opting out of healthcare. Yet people continue to get sick. The aging Baby Boom population is well understood as putting more pressure on healthcare. It isn`t a luxury, we have to have healthcare professionals.

Putting the two side by side, I`d argue that the insurance industry is going to eventually end up in the hands of gigantic conglomerates. But the healthcare recruiting industry is going to rest in the hands of excellent and persuasive sales people---individuals.

When you say health care recruiting, do you mean finding people to be trained to fill health care positions or finding already trained professionals to fill current vacant positions?

It is my understanding that there is a very critical shortage of health care workers in America. Many stats can be found on the DOL and BLS government sites to back this up. Not long ago, they were predicting one million new job openings for registered nurses by 2010.

In my view, I don`t see a huge need for recruiters in a field where the industry is begging for people. In other words, any one in health care can find a job pretty easy without a recruiter. I`m in Atlanta and GA and the shortage is serious here. I know lots of people in health care and they are naming their price right now.

The other problem we have in GA and I suspect it is true in other states is that we have lots of people wanting to get into the health care industry but there are just not enough schools to train all who want in. The school waiting lists are years long. And this is part of the problem. Not enough schools. Can`t fill the pipeline fast enough. Sort of like the gasoline problem. We have raw materials, just not enough refiniries today because no one built them 20-30 years ago and now the costs to do so are astromonical. NIMBY (another story for another day).

Maybe I`m missing something on this recruiting idea and I am wrong ... I am often. Help me understand the facts as you see them.

R@

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Richard Arnold · Key Concept Writers · Business Communication: The "Key" To Success· Law of Attraction Blog · Life Ain`t Brain Surgery Blog

I suspect the recruiter`s job in a shortage-driven field would be to entice a healthcare worker from one location to another.