May 23, 2013

Bouchard Insurance: Profile of a midsized company

Best Midsized Company No. 8 - Insurance

Amy Keller | 7/24/2012

Doug Bishop

CEO Doug Bishop

Doug Bishop, CEO of Clearwater-based Bouchard Insurance, says people thought he was “crazy” when he decided to hire a full-time recruiter in 2010, but having an in-house recruiter, he says, has made a “huge, huge difference.” Bishop says the recruiter attends all the job fairs and events around the state and continues to look for potential candidates — even when the firm isn’t hiring — so that there is an available pipeline of talent when jobs open up.

In 2011, Bouchard’s recruiter interviewed 677 applicants and hired 26 of them, Bishop says, making him confident that the firm is recruiting the cream of the crop. Bishop says the insurance brokerage firm prefers to hire inexperienced workers and train them in the insurance business. “We believe in the build-your-own type of model. We have a full-time education department, and we train from the ground up,” says Bishop, who joined the firm 15 years ago at age 25 when he was fresh out of Florida State’s Risk Management and Insurance program.

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