Avez-vous la bosse Financi re Sun Life? – Sun Life Financial launches innovative, interactive recruiting tool

MONTREAL, March 28, 2012 – Sun Life Financial is launching a tool today that helps demystify the financial security advisor career and encourages talented candidates to join the ranks of Sun Life Financial advisors in Quebec. This innovative tool shuns traditional approaches and uses instead an entertaining and interactive web platform. And it would be safe to say that this is a platform totally unlike anything you would expect from an insurance company!

Sun Life Financial currently has a strong network of 700 advisors who guide and coach clients at every stage of their lives: from analyzing their needs, to preparing their financial plan and keeping it on track. Then why create this new tool and recruit more advisors? So we can provide this service to even more Quebecers, right across the province. But also so we can source top talent, people who may not be aware of the benefits and challenges this career has to offer and not know that they would make excellent advisors.

Content creation to spur recruiting

“For social media to be an effective delivery method for a recruiting campaign there needs to be value-added content for future candidates. A traditional ad would have been one way to present all the benefits around our vision of the advisor career, but interesting and insightful interactive content is a real differentiator for us. It enables users to experience this vision first hand,” explains Diane Lafontaine, Assistant Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Quebec.

http://bosse.sunlife.ca/ : a fun and interactive web platform

The platform developed by kbs+p montr�al includes an interactive film called “Avez-vous la bosse Financi�re Sun Life?” It is a first-person experience, similar to action games that make you the hero. It puts users into the film’s leading role, where they spend a day as a Sun Life Financial advisor.

The story begins with Albert Beausoleil, a phrenology expert (phrenology is the 19th-century pseudoscience of determining someone’s personality from the bumps on their skull). He suggests using a simulation to analyze bumps on the user’s head, to find out whether “la bosse Financi�re Sun Life” is indeed there.

Led by this brilliant but obscure phrenologist, who has a special style all his own, the visitor is thrust into five realistic situations where decisions must be made that will drive the outcome of the story.

The visitor makes choices throughout the experience that reveal the type of attitude and personality a Sun Life Financial advisor needs to have. Diane Lafontaine notes that, “We are in the market for men and women between the ages of 25 and 45 who are looking to switch careers or who don’t feel entirely fulfilled in their current job. The advisor role may also be of interest to energetic new graduates who want a career offering strong earning potential, plenty of independence and significant flexibility for managing their time. But most of all we are looking for people who are motivated to succeed, have strong interpersonal skills and who like helping others. We want to show that unlike what many people still think, this is really not a boring career!”

The short film can be found on microsite http://bosse.sunlife.ca/, which also contains more information about the advisor career and a form for visitors to complete if they would like to be contacted by a financial centre manager from Sun Life Financial.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of wealth accumulation and protection products and services to individuals and corporate customers. Chartered in 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China and Bermuda. As of December 31, 2011, the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of CDN$466 billion. For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com.