Farm Bureau Insurance of Michigan Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed Jan 2010 in Lansing, MI (took 7 weeks)

This is the 2nd time that I applied at this firm. The first time, a few years back, I played phone tag for a month trying to schedule a face to face. I ended up getting a job somewhere else.

This time I did the initial phone screening interview, and waited. I ended up doing a short contract somewhere else for a month. Contract ended and it was just in time for a panel/ group interview.
They have an interview checklist, and they followed it. There was a technical screening, but the questions were something a 3rd year IT student could have answered. There was no programming test. The manager seemed very competent and nice.

I offered my services and they accepted. It has been a month since I started working here.

The technology is old, about 6 years old is considered current for them. The people who work here are very personable and friendly. I can’t see any outright odd . . . behaviors. They have good management and less than an hour per week is wasted on meetings. I like it. The pay is fair. The hours are short. As a programmer, I am accustomed to 50 hour work weeks. They have a 38 hour work week and generous benefits that the company pays about 80% of the cost. Going to work here, is like . . . going on vacation, compared to the contract positions I’ve have in the past years.

Overall, this is a great place to work. In a technology challenged world, they are trying to adapt, albeit in small steps. They don’t believe in staff turnover, and some people I work beside, have 20+ years in the IT field. Very odd, for them not to have been outsourced. Another odd observation, is that statistically, women comprise 15% of IT graduates. Here, women are 50% of the IT staff. I expect this seems normal to them, since most insurance companies are staffed almost entirely by women. ( 90% ). There is a lot of in-house knowledge here due to the length of their careers at the same company.

Makes for a pleasant work environment. Overall, this is a great place to hire in. I expect that I'll retire from here. The quest of searching for a normal workplace is over.