WAVE STRENGTH PODCASTHow Pacific Life's University Relations Program Attracts Top Intern Talent

On this episode of The Wave Strength, Pacific Life’s Nicci Leibold joins host Jim Breen to discuss Pacific Life’s University Relations program and the importance of attracting the country’s best interns. Listen as Nicci explains how outreach, building networks, and fostering relationships are key tools for recruiting today’s top talent. Nicci reveals that modern interns are contributing much more than in previous years, bringing innovation and fresh ideas into the workplace. The result is a competitive advantage, even before the interns grow into future business leaders.

About Nicci Leibold

Nicci is a University Relations Program Manager at Pacific Life. As part of the Talent Acquisition team, she functions within the Human Resources department, specializing in early career talent. Nicci is responsible for recruiting and acquiring entry-level talent for current and future business needs. Nicci joined Pacific Life in 2015.

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Voiceover: Welcome to The Wave Strength. Innovative solutions for a secure retirement. Presented by Pacific Life.

Jim Breen: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Wave Strength podcast series. I'm your host, Jim Breen. I'm head of marketing for Pacific Life's Institutional Team. And with us in studio today is Nicci Leibold. Nicci, thank you so much for joining us today.

Nicci Leibold: My pleasure. I'm happy to be here.

Jim Breen: Great. And Nicci is our corporate manager for the university relations team. And you know, Nicci, I've known you for many years. You actually helped onboard me for my role when I first started at Pacific Life several years ago. So very grateful, obviously, for that. And we've known each other a long time. And, you know, there's a lot I want to talk to you today about regarding our university, our excellent university relations program at Pacific Life. But before we get into that, perhaps you can share a little bit about your background with our listeners.

Nicci Leibold: Sure. So I have been with Pacific Life for eight years now. I started out recruiting in a senior recruiter function for our sales and marketing teams. And about five years ago, my manager and I recognized the need to centralize our university relations function. And so the role was created. I applied, and I have been happily in this role since. And prior to that, my whole background is actually in recruiting. So I've always had my hands in university relations, but never as a full-time role. So living the dream job now.

Jim Breen: Living the dream, absolutely. And it's an important role because, you know, at Pacific Life, we're over 155 years old now. And we're really focused on strength and stability and also to reaching out to our communities, becoming close partners with or without the communities in which we do business. And is this kind of a way in which we're doing that with this community outreach or this, I mean, what would you call it? Not so much outreach, but more of this...

Nicci Leibold: Partnership?

Jim Breen: ...university partnership. Yeah. And how does that work? I mean, do you go to the universities? Do you how do you establish those relationships?

Nicci Leibold: Great question. So we've had some of that established through our public affairs team prior to me being in the role. However, I am able to leverage those relationships that have been created with local universities. And then also throughout the nation we have schools that we target for top talent. And so I'm able to get to know the career centers; the students build deep partnerships to help bring on board early, strong, early career talent.

Jim Breen: And will you do most of the work on campus, or is it okay? Okay.

Nicci Leibold: No, it's a good question. That is the wild card right now. We're we're piloting this year a hybrid approach to both.

Jim Breen: And in that hybrid approach. So to just kind of not to necessarily timestamp this episode, but we are hopefully coming out of a pandemic, global pandemic, right? Where I'm sure in the last two years it's made the role challenging. And so let's talk about that post-pandemic here. Hopefully, you know, what does that mean? Well, with this new role and it sounds like you're doing some interesting new things.

Nicci Leibold: We sure are. So for the... we had two summers of fully remote internships with around 50 students, remote. So that was an interesting transition. And then this past summer, currently, we've got about 46 interns all on site.

Jim Breen: 46?

Nicci Leibold: Yes.

Jim Breen: Wow.

Nicci Leibold: Yeah.

Jim Breen: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And is that across all of our locations or just in our West Coast operations?

Nicci Leibold: We have the majority in the West Coast. We have seven in Omaha and one remote, actually.

Jim Breen: Wonderful. And it's interesting because I've actually had the opportunity at our Newport Beach campus to talk to several of our new interns. And there seems to be a very excited, motivated, and encouraging vibe that you see from them. And I've heard some of them comment on the program and how they feel very, you know, welcome. They really feel like they're part of the PL experience, the Pacific Life experience, and that must be part of this new hybrid approach or these new efforts that you're putting into this university relations program.

Nicci Leibold: Yes. So it is very exciting to have everyone back in the office, the interns have been there for five days a week, and they are loving it because they have been remote, and some of them have never worked in an office or a corporate setting because of the pandemic. And so just having the collaboration and being treated as a team member and employee I think is really a valuable experience for them. They have the opportunity to network live with people, and I think that brings a lot more engagement collaboration. They get to share their innovations and insights with our leaders and impress them and hopefully create long-lasting relationships where we can hire them.

Jim Breen: In those relationships you talk about, especially, let's go back to the innovation. You mentioned innovation, and with our Institutional business at Pacific Life, we're very much focused on a couple of things, especially as it pertains to our defined contribution lifetime income side of the house or DCLI, where we're really trying to provide unique opportunities and education, participant experience, working with plan sponsors to help them see that we are trying to tackle the need for lifetime income through the lens of like a very hearts and minds approach. And it seems to me that this university relations program is a fantastic opportunity, right, to tap into, you know, fresh ideas, potential for new talent, and to really have that opportunity to listen to, frankly, new ideas.

Nicci Leibold: I 100% degree. I think every leader that meets one of these interns or hires straight out of college learned something from them and their insights are invaluable. We have, I hear it from the managers all the time, and it just creates this energy in the organization. People are during the summer, especially coming in asking me how do I get signed up to have this sort of talent join my team is very exciting.

Jim Breen: So Nicci, reaching out to these students via the universities is nothing new. But, you know, just to recap, we do have a very robust actuarial program at Pacific Life. Right? It's been around for.

Nicci Leibold: 15 years.

Jim Breen: 15 years. 15 years. So this is nothing new, obviously. But you are expanding, it sounds like. Right? I think our data scientist side of the intern program has grown.

Nicci Leibold: Yes. Five years ago, we started with seven data analytics interns. We are at 21 this year, so its continuing to grow year by year. Same with sales actually. Sales has six interns, and they'll continue to build that program in order to build a pipeline of future talent. We have hired marketing interns into full-time hires in the past and real estate MBA interns. Some strategy MBAs. Investment management. So yes, we're always open to new areas that are critical to our business.

Jim Breen: And that's important too. I mean, obviously the actuarial program, so much success, but there are many other areas within the enterprise that can benefit from such a program. And it's great to hear that we're expanding that. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, from an Institutional business standpoint, as we look further down the road for this decline defined contribution, lifetime income space, it's going to be so important for us to look to those interns for thought leadership, these folks that are coming from university with fresh ideas and innovative solutions that perhaps that the current generation is not thought of yet. So these new folks coming in, these fresh ideas, we're very excited about that. And I want to thank you, Nicci, for all your great work that you've done with the university relations program and helping to bring this great new set of talent to Pacific Life.

Nicci Leibold: Thank you.

Jim Breen: Absolutely. And thanks for joining us also, Nicci, on the episode. We absolutely love to have you back.

Nicci Leibold: Awesome. I would love to come back.

Jim Breen: Great. Great. Thank you, Nicci. And to our audience, I want to thank you for spending time out of your day with us on The Wave Strength podcast series. I'm your host, Jim Breen. I'd love to encourage you to head over to YouTube, Spotify, and Audible Search The Wave Strength and see new content. But please don't forget the like and subscribe what you see.

Jim Breen: Have a great day, everybody.

Voiceover: This has been another episode of The Way of Strength presented by Pacific Life. Don't forget to catch us on YouTube and make sure to subscribe. Although this podcast is presented by Pacific Life, the opinions and views expressed are those of the hosts and participants and do not necessarily reflect Pacific Life's views on any of the topics discussed. Pacific Life is a product provider. It is not a fiduciary and therefore does not give advice or make recommendations regarding insurance or investment products. Pacific Life its affiliates, its distributors and respective representatives do not provide any employer sponsored qualified plan administrative services or impartial advice about investments and do not act in a fiduciary capacity for any plan. Pacific Life refers to Pacific Life Insurance Company and its affiliates, including Pacific Life and Annuity Company. Insurance products can be issued in all states except New York by Pacific Life Insurance Company or Pacific Life, an annuity company in New York. Insurance products are only issued by Pacific Life, an annuity company. Product availability and features may vary by state. Each insurance company is solely responsible for the financial obligations accruing under the products it issues. This podcast was recorded on August 5th, 2022.

Jim Breen: Thanks for joining us on today's show. We'd love to hear from you. Join the conversation below and leave a comment on your thoughts on what the industry can do better for participants as it pertains to lifetime income solutions. And if you'd like more interesting content, click one of these links over here.