Senior Recruiter – Wealth Management 💸 at enable recruitment | B Corp™ - Connecting extraordinary Financial Planning professionals to market leading firms across the UK.
Why are there so little opportunities for newcomers in to the Financial Planning industry? I speak to at least 3x candidates per day who want to get in to the industry but do not know how. There is not a 'lack of interest' - Trainee roles are actually in very high demand. So my questions to those in the industry are as follows: - How did you get in to the industry? - Are you doing anything to assist with ambitious newbies looking for a career in Financial Planning?
I started working in banking, did CeMap followed by the diploma in the evenings (self funded) and then applied for some trainee IFA positions. X
I did my Master's along with my IAD, yet it was just so difficult to get into financial planning. Me being an international student made matters even worse. I felt that this industry employs more through referrals, connections and consultancies than the standard job applications. I then popped onto LinkedIn, sent out 40-50 connection requests everyday and say 10-15 used to accept the connection request, I used to message all of them asking for an opportunity. Did this for north of 400 people before I got an internship and then the job. It's tough.
Strong opinion! I'd be interested to see the feedback and learn how we can help those individuals.
Financial Adviser 🤝 Certified Coach 💡 | 🔔 --> hit the bell
2moHi Abi Price, it's an interesting question and one I've thought about myself too. Here's my rationale thus far; In order to have somewhat a good trainee program, said firm need to be large enough to both support the training of the employee whilst remaining profitable with the other operations. If you look at the vast majority of firms out there. Exclude the big companies with academies and you are left with lots of smaller firms. Of these smaller firms, many simply are one -person bands. As such, the operation is profitable to remain a lifestyle business. What the profession needs are more mid-sized firms who wants to continue to grow and have the financial capacity to grow and support new talent, Jane Gow is a good example, her firm takes on a graduate per year. To try be a solution to the current problem, I'm self-employed with big ambitions. I hope to grow to such an extent I can afford to hire people in the next 5 years. This will heavily rely on whether I can survive myself for the first couple of years. Multiply the above scenario in the hundreds and we may start to see traction and change starting to happen. It's slow though.