Bankers Life
Project
UI/UX, Employer Branding, Art Direction
UI/UX, Employer Branding, Art Direction
Role
Lead Designer
Lead Designer
Client
Bankers Life
Bankers Life
Agency
Bayard Advertising
Bayard Advertising
01 | Overview
Designing for the Decision, Not Just the Job
Bankers Life has been helping seniors navigate financial security since 1879. The mission hadn't changed. The talent market around it had changed completely.
The insurance industry carries a perception problem. Commission-only sales carries a reputation problem. And the specific audience Bankers Life needed to reach: career changers mid-stream in lives that weren't working out as planned, who carried both simultaneously. The existing careers site wasn't built to address any of it. My role was to bring the visual and UX design to life for an employer brand strategy that didn't just recruit. It needed to earn trust, address fear, and convert skeptics before they ever spoke to a recruiter.
02 | Scope
01
Career site reinvention: full UX design and art direction for a content-heavy candidate experience built around the psychology of a career changer
Career site reinvention: full UX design and art direction for a content-heavy candidate experience built around the psychology of a career changer
02
Visual design for employee story content: video carousels, image treatment, and layout systems for a large library of employee-generated content
Visual design for employee story content: video carousels, image treatment, and layout systems for a large library of employee-generated content
03
Compensation and training visualizations: translating complex career path and earnings information into clear, reassuring visual formats
Compensation and training visualizations: translating complex career path and earnings information into clear, reassuring visual formats
04
Q&A and content architecture: designing a searchable, topic-organized section to surface answers to every candidate fear surfaced in research
Q&A and content architecture: designing a searchable, topic-organized section to surface answers to every candidate fear surfaced in research
03 | Design
The visual system had to do something specific: feel warm and human without losing credibility. The career-changer audience needed to feel seen, not sold to. Photography, layout, and typographic choices were all made in service of building trust at a moment when candidates were weighing a genuinely significant life decision.
04 | Content Experience
One of the most distinctive design challenges was making a large volume of content feel navigable and reassuring rather than overwhelming. Every fear the research surfaced (the licensing exam, the commission structure, the industry unfamiliarity) needed to be met with a real person's story and a clear visual answer. The layout had to make that feel like guidance, not noise.
05 | Outcome
The career site replaced a four-hour in-person informational session that had been the primary way Bankers Life introduced the opportunity to candidates. The design work made that shift possible by making the case visually, clearly, and at scale.
Trust Built Before Contact
Candidates who moved forward consistently cited the career site as a primary reason: not compensation potential, not brand recognition, but the feeling that every question they had was anticipated and met honestly.
Candidates who moved forward consistently cited the career site as a primary reason: not compensation potential, not brand recognition, but the feeling that every question they had was anticipated and met honestly.
Process Transformation
The site replaced a burdensome in-person session that had been costly and still left questions unresolved. The design work made a new, more efficient candidate journey possible at scale.
The site replaced a burdensome in-person session that had been costly and still left questions unresolved. The design work made a new, more efficient candidate journey possible at scale.
Audience Expansion
A content experience designed around the career-changer mindset opened the door to an audience Bankers Life had never effectively reached, people who needed to be convinced, not just informed.
A content experience designed around the career-changer mindset opened the door to an audience Bankers Life had never effectively reached, people who needed to be convinced, not just informed.
