TheCaspian
Expert
- 97
I know its come up a thousand times in the forums, but I figure I'll write down my own first interview experience with New York Life so that future newbies who want to know about NYL will at least have this anecdotal evidence to go by.
BACKROUND: So one day, I get an Careerbuilder from a Senior Partner/CFP asking me if I'd be interested in a career opportunity. (My resume is about as far from selling life/annuities as one can get) It piques my interest, but I ignore it.
Three months later, I had since quit my non insurance job, so I decided to go in for the interview. This forum had good things to say about NYL and the training so I figured why not.
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THE INTERVIEW: Put on my suit and tie, grab a copy of my resume and head on off to the NYL office. Show up fifteen minutes early, the receptionist says have a seat, he'll be out soon. Another guy walks in, asks the same question, and is seated. This happens 2 more times. Turns out it is going to be a group interview.
We all get put in a conference room, and the Senior Partner says hi and starts out asking each of us our background. The 4 of us are from a variety of different backgrounds from me (4 years out of college) to someone approaching 60. I think only one person had previous financial experience.
One person was asked how much money she ever made, and then income numbers about the 10% of the salesforce get made and they are HUGE....Approaching 500k a year (which I'm not sure I believe)
We are then told that his team sees about 6000 resumes a year, interviews 250 and hires 8-9 (not sure what to make of these numbers)
The next part he quickly describes commission and to his credit warns everyone that if you are afraid of the word 'commission' that the job isn't going to be for you. He basically says that you can expect to make 10x the monthly payment of a life policy and 4% on an annuity. Goes over the mechanics of the breakdown.
All the while, our Senior Partner was being colloquial and trying to get a feel for each of our personalities and asking basic financial literacy questions. He was selling on us life insurance itself too, describing a scenario about a friend who passed away in his 40s. He basically pitched life insurance to us without actually offering to sell it, and his presentation was very sincere and convincing. (no doubt a good salesman)
We go over the basics of NYL life products a little more and how they are sold. We were allowed to ask one question of our choosing, and he would answer it completely truthfully.
We are told that we have to pass an aptitude test that would take about 15 minutes and that only 50% of the people who take it pass. He got the scores immediately and had people go into his office one at a time.
The SP said I passed although he was a little worried that I have a fairly small natural market, because I've only been in MD for a few years. Scheduled the second interview this week.
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By the end, he and I had a pretty good repertoire, even though some of the other interviews were stiffer and didn't really open up or field too many questions. Having had a little knowledge of insurance previous to the interview (THANK YOU FORUM MEMBERS) I interviewed well and asked intelligent insurance related questions. I know at least one other person passed the aptitude test.
I'm a little skeptical of the numbers that were thrown out, especially where even not top 10%ers were into the 6 figure mark but I know NYL is serious about training and wants its agents to do well.
I will follow up this post with a breakdown of the second interview when it happens.
BACKROUND: So one day, I get an Careerbuilder from a Senior Partner/CFP asking me if I'd be interested in a career opportunity. (My resume is about as far from selling life/annuities as one can get) It piques my interest, but I ignore it.
Three months later, I had since quit my non insurance job, so I decided to go in for the interview. This forum had good things to say about NYL and the training so I figured why not.
-------------------------------------------------------------
THE INTERVIEW: Put on my suit and tie, grab a copy of my resume and head on off to the NYL office. Show up fifteen minutes early, the receptionist says have a seat, he'll be out soon. Another guy walks in, asks the same question, and is seated. This happens 2 more times. Turns out it is going to be a group interview.
We all get put in a conference room, and the Senior Partner says hi and starts out asking each of us our background. The 4 of us are from a variety of different backgrounds from me (4 years out of college) to someone approaching 60. I think only one person had previous financial experience.
One person was asked how much money she ever made, and then income numbers about the 10% of the salesforce get made and they are HUGE....Approaching 500k a year (which I'm not sure I believe)
We are then told that his team sees about 6000 resumes a year, interviews 250 and hires 8-9 (not sure what to make of these numbers)
The next part he quickly describes commission and to his credit warns everyone that if you are afraid of the word 'commission' that the job isn't going to be for you. He basically says that you can expect to make 10x the monthly payment of a life policy and 4% on an annuity. Goes over the mechanics of the breakdown.
All the while, our Senior Partner was being colloquial and trying to get a feel for each of our personalities and asking basic financial literacy questions. He was selling on us life insurance itself too, describing a scenario about a friend who passed away in his 40s. He basically pitched life insurance to us without actually offering to sell it, and his presentation was very sincere and convincing. (no doubt a good salesman)
We go over the basics of NYL life products a little more and how they are sold. We were allowed to ask one question of our choosing, and he would answer it completely truthfully.
We are told that we have to pass an aptitude test that would take about 15 minutes and that only 50% of the people who take it pass. He got the scores immediately and had people go into his office one at a time.
The SP said I passed although he was a little worried that I have a fairly small natural market, because I've only been in MD for a few years. Scheduled the second interview this week.
----------------------------------------------------------
By the end, he and I had a pretty good repertoire, even though some of the other interviews were stiffer and didn't really open up or field too many questions. Having had a little knowledge of insurance previous to the interview (THANK YOU FORUM MEMBERS) I interviewed well and asked intelligent insurance related questions. I know at least one other person passed the aptitude test.
I'm a little skeptical of the numbers that were thrown out, especially where even not top 10%ers were into the 6 figure mark but I know NYL is serious about training and wants its agents to do well.
I will follow up this post with a breakdown of the second interview when it happens.
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