Intentional Hiring for High-Stakes Industries

Your hiring process is costing you more than you think.
We fix what's broken. We find the right talent.

Willful is a candidate experience consulting and executive search firm built for insurance, financial services, and health solutions companies that are serious about how they hire — and what it costs when they don't.

$240K
Average cost of a failed executive hire in financial services — before you factor in lost momentum and team disruption.
94
Average days to fill a senior role in insurance and financial services. Every day is lost productivity.
38%
of candidates who have a poor hiring experience share it publicly — on Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and beyond.
1 in 3
New hires leave within 90 days when the hiring process is broken from the start. The problem doesn't end at the offer.
Our candidates have landed at companies like
Nationwide
USAA
Hartford
Humana
Progressive
MetLife
Liberty Mutual
Blue Cross Blue Shield
CVS Health
Centene
Capital Group
American Family
Frost Bank
Across disciplines including Director · AVP · VP · Principal roles in Operations · Technology · Digital & UX · Product · Innovation · CX · Marketing · Underwriting · Actuarial · Finance · and more

Most companies hire reactively.
Willful hires intentionally.

Insurance, financial services, and health solutions companies operate in some of the most complex, regulated, and high-stakes environments in the world. Your hiring process should reflect that — not undermine it.

A broken process doesn't just lose candidates. It costs time, revenue, and organizational momentum. We built Willful because we've seen that cost — from the inside — hundreds of times.

  • Roles stay open 60–90+ days not because talent doesn't exist — but because the process can't move fast enough to close them.
  • Interview panels misalign on every candidate, creating endless loops that exhaust hiring teams and delay decisions.
  • Offer declines happen at the finish line — not because of compensation, but because the experience signaled disorganization.
  • Internal recruiting teams spend the majority of their time managing process instead of identifying talent.
  • Executive searches stretch for quarters instead of weeks because the role brief was never clearly defined from the start.
  • Hiring managers disengage from the process entirely — leaving recruiters to make decisions they weren't empowered to make.

Two ways we work.
One philosophy.

Willful Consulting and Willful Search are distinct services — each complete on its own. Some clients need one. Some need both. Either way, the work is always intentional.

Willful Consulting

Candidate Experience Consulting

We take a human-centered look at your entire candidate journey — identifying where it breaks down, redesigning what isn't working, and building a process your hiring team can actually execute. Because the way you hire tells people everything about the way you lead.

  • Candidate Experience Assessment — end-to-end process review
  • Journey mapping and gap analysis
  • Interview process redesign and alignment frameworks
  • Hiring team enablement and calibration
  • Ongoing advisory retainer for continuous optimization

Built for organizations between 500 and 5,000 employees — established enough to have real hiring challenges, agile enough to solve them.

Start with an Assessment

Built from the inside out.

Willful was founded by Will, a Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) practitioner with over a decade of professional experience across insurance, financial services, and health solutions, and eight years working directly with professionals navigating career transitions at some of the industry's most recognized firms. That work gave Will something most HR consulting firms don't have — a rare inside view of how companies actually hire, and the systemic recognition of where the candidate journey consistently breaks down.

Will has lived the candidate journey — not just studied it. He's seen where processes stall, where interview panels misalign, and where offers fall apart at the finish line — not because of compensation, but because of disorganization. That inside perspective is the foundation of everything Willful does.

Willful exists to bring intention to both sides of the equation. We assess and optimize the process. We identify and place the talent. Always deliberately. Never by accident.

10+ Years of Differentiated Industry Experience A decade as a CX and EX practitioner embedded in insurance, financial services, and health solutions — giving Willful a perspective and skillset most HR consulting firms simply don't have.
8 Years of Candidate Intelligence Hundreds of placements across the industry's leading organizations — generating unmatched insight into what candidates actually experience during your hiring process.
Experience Management Methodology Human-centered design, journey management, and root cause analysis applied directly to the candidate experience — translating experience management practices into hiring excellence.
The Willful Standard Every engagement — search or consulting — is anchored in one word: intention. We don't do accidental. We do deliberate.

Let's start
intentionally.

Every engagement starts with a conversation — no pitch, no pressure. Just an honest discussion about where you are and where you want to be.

Focus Insurance · Financial Services · Health Solutions
Services Candidate Experience Consulting · Executive Search

Real people.
Real moves.

What the candidates we've placed and supported have to say about working with Will.

"I didn't think I stood a chance after a 5-year caretaking break. Will helped me land a role at a top investment management company. I felt seen, supported, and am forever grateful."

Rene
Career Returner → Investment Management

"Will helped me break into an amazing company 9 years ago after being a SAHM for 3 years. He's supported me through three promotions since. I wouldn't be where I am without him."

Nicole
Career Returner → 3 Promotions

"Will helped me position myself and my skills to elevate my career from frontline employee support to HR program management."

Devon
Career Elevation → HR Program Management

"I've spent decades in government aviation. Will helped me translate my military experience into the private sector. I'm positioned to win."

Pat
Military → Private Sector Leadership

"I had a design degree for five years and was working retail. I feared my degree was a waste until I met Will. I'm now in a graphic design role."

Cory
Career Alignment → Design Role

"I didn't know how to move out of vet clinics and maintain my passion for animal care. Will helped me transition into a remote role at a pet insurance company."

Coral
Career Pivot → Pet Insurance