MassMutual's Vision Financial Group Streamlines Financial Services Recruitment with Loxo

Overview

MassMutual’s Vision Financial Group (VFG) is a leader in the financial services industry, focusing on hiring independent financial advisors. This unique recruitment challenge requires managing highly complex pipelines, tracking multiple candidates through extensive and nuanced hiring processes, and ensuring alignment across various locations. Todd Cranston, who has over a decade of experience as an Onboarding Manager — along with prior experience in staffing and project management — shares how Loxo is a cut above all the other tools he’s encountered.

The challenges of financial services recruitment

Every industry or niche has its own challenges — and recruiting in financial services is distinct from other industries.

VFG recruits for one primary role: financial advisors. However, the complexity arises from managing individual pipelines rather than individual job orders. Each sales manager is responsible for their own pipeline — which means Todd needs a system that allows for comprehensive oversight (via a master pipeline view) while enabling each manager to operate efficiently on their own individual pipelines.

"We're hiring independent contractors, so instead of managing individual jobs, we manage individual pipelines," says Todd. "We have multiple sales managers, and it’s embarrassing from a candidate experience perspective if they aren’t aligned across locations."

The process

The recruitment process at VFG is as intricate as it is lengthy.

At the beginning of the process, there’s a ton of qualification work to be done to determine who is truly a viable candidate. Because the company is working to hire independent contractors who work on commission, there’s a major educational component that comes into play as well.  

“We’re asking people to start their own businesses and that’s really tough,” Todd explains. “It’s hard work, with late nights, a large ramp time to getting paid — that’s a really hard sell. You’re trying to find a unicorn every single time, and build a pipeline of unicorns.”

Given this level of complexity, the early stages of the interview process include family interviews to ensure everyone is bought in, vision and value proposition meetings where a picture of potential impact is painted, and calls that detail compensation information — all before an offer is even made.

Once the offer is made, the candidate still has to go through state-specific licensing requirements, background checks, and additional administrative steps. This process often takes over a month, from offer to the candidate's true start date.

Keeping track of all of this information — which candidates have completed what, which documents are missing, which sales managers are following best practices, etc. — was a nightmare before Loxo's Talent Intelligence Platform.

In fact, prior to adopting Loxo, the team relied on what Todd refers to as the “Spreadsheet of Doom” — aka a clunky Excel sheet that lacked the customization and nuance their business model necessitates. Especially in an industry that has strict compliance measures, getting more organized was necessary.

The people

Another interesting challenge for VFG’s team is that the types of candidates that they’re sourcing can come from very different backgrounds — and the “soft skills” often matter a lot more than the hard skills or past experience.

Todd’s team is typically looking for career changers — if there’s been a layoff, if there’s been a change of CEO or other signals of a change in culture, etc. These candidates are typically open to hearing about what this path could look like.

The interesting thing is that across different locations, recruiters notice that different experience can be a positive indicator. For example, Todd says that his Rochester team has noticed that former precision machine shop workers tend to do well in their geo. Former teachers, on the other hand, aren’t typically a good match in their area — but in other locations, they hear the opposite. With software that allows you to analyze trends through that master pipeline view, you can start to notice these things and use that data to inform your strategy moving forward.

“We interview all sorts of people," Todd says. “You don’t necessarily need a college degree; you need to know which kinds of questions to ask. 99% of being successful in this world is being able to read people well, and build trust and rapport very quickly. We’re really looking for those soft, humanistic qualities in candidates.”  

The search for a solution

Todd, with his extensive background in managing large-scale staffing projects, was no stranger to different recruitment software platforms.

"I've been exposed to a lot of these different softwares," Todd recalls. "Most of those programs had good theory, but they don’t work well in practice. For example: Not a lot of platforms have easy email sync where all activities are tracked instantly."

Needless to say, Todd was impressed when he discovered Loxo.

"I needed something we could use and adapt to our unique process. When I saw Loxo, I was like ‘YES, I see how we can use this.’”

Enter Loxo: the game-changer

Loxo’s platform immediately stood out to Todd for its intuitiveness and ease of use.

"With Loxo, I find it’s a lot more intuitive,” Todd says. “It's as easy as drag and drop to move candidates through pipelines. I want it easy — one activity, one output."

The ability to customize pipelines to match VFG’s specific recruitment process was crucial. Todd and his team created custom pipeline stages that align with their process, such as maintaining candidates in a "Pending" or "Hold" stage instead of outright rejecting them. "We want to maintain the ability to touch base with these people,” Todd explains. “Maybe they’re not a good fit now, but they could be later on."

Loxo also enhanced collaboration among the team, enabling them to present candidates to other managers for feedback and ensuring alignment across all locations. Todd highlights the platform’s flexibility and its ability to create a master pipeline where he can oversee the entire recruitment process.

"We needed something that made it very clear who is doing what. Loxo allows me to see a master pipeline with everyone in it."

Efficiency and data integrity

One of the most significant benefits Todd noticed with Loxo was the speed and accuracy with which information could be accessed and utilized.

"A lot of the benefit to Loxo is the speed with which we can find information about a candidate,” Todd says.

Attachments are added to the candidate’s profile — and there’s a lot of licensing and sensitive information that needs to be filled out.

Loxo’s platform also served as a reliable source of truth, enabling Todd and his team to verify that all necessary activities had been completed. "If there’s a compliance issue, you can verify things here. It’s a wonderful repository for this stuff."

The reporting capabilities in Loxo have further enhanced VFG’s recruitment process. Todd appreciates how easy it is to export raw data, which he can then manipulate as needed. "Loxo’s reporting is really good. It’s great, and being able to get that raw data is clutch."

Transforming recruitment at Vision Financial Group

Loxo has fundamentally changed how Vision Financial Group manages recruitment, particularly in an industry where the stakes are high, and the process is complex. The platform has become a source of truth — providing VFG with the tools needed to maintain data integrity, improve collaboration, and streamline operations.

"It created a huge efficiency for us because everything is stored in one place. In Excel, there’s no way to organize this information. Whereas I can look at Loxo and instantly see what’s missing," Todd explains. "Loxo has allowed us to be proactive rather than reactive, getting ahead of things instead of constantly putting out fires."

With Loxo, Vision Financial Group has been able to focus on what truly matters: finding and hiring the right financial advisors who can make a meaningful impact on their clients' lives.

Takeaway

Loxo has proven to be a vital tool for Mass Mutual’s Vision Financial Group, providing the simplicity, customization, and efficiency needed to navigate the complexities of recruiting in the financial services industry.

VFG’s experience with Loxo showcases how the right technology can transform not just the recruitment process, but the entire approach to talent management in a highly specialized and demanding field.

Ready to learn more about how a Talent Intelligence Platform can make a difference in your recruitment and hiring process? Schedule a demo today!