A fair number of readers are interested in finding financial planning jobs .
Flikr, Orphanjones
I thought I’d share a story that will help you if you are one of those folks.
Scott, a friend of mine, called a few days ago and asked me about an opportunity in financial services.
He’s currently out of work and needs to start earning quickly. He’s got lots of sales experience but no financial advising experience.
Undeterred, he contacted a fast-growing financial services company and was miraculously offered a job.
Before you get too excited…I need to share the particulars.
A. The “job” doesn’t pay him anything. It’s 100% commission.
B. His employer doesn’t introduce him to clients. He’s got to beat the bushes and hit up everyone he knows for business.
C. Scott has to pay for his own licensing fees too.
The only thing this “employer” provides is sponsorship to sit for the securities exams.
I asked Scott to tell me more about the interview process and the company itself.
He told me that his first meeting was a group interview with about 20 recruits like himself. After about an hour, each rookie was brought into a room with the manager for about 10 minutes and was grilled about how many people they know.
The manager told Scott that the “training” lasts two weeks and would cost him $795.
Scott told me that the company earns a commission of 7% on everything sold and the salesperson pockets 35% of that.
I told Scott to run – not walk – away from these people.
I told him that boiler room places like these just look to get lots of new rookies started. They know most of the rookies will likely fail after a few desperate months but possibly get a few clients to sign up. The rookies leave having wasted time and lots of money. The company keeps the clients and most of the commissions of course. Then…they start again with a new batch of suckers.
The list of things that are wrong with this company is pretty long.
a. They don’t provide any real training to become a successful financial planner.
b. They seem like product pushers.
c. They work on commissions.
d. The rookies have all the risk. The company doesn’t invest anything in them.
e. There is no real marketing going on.
If you want to get into the financial services industry, don’t fall for this kind of slimy pitch. Make sure the firm you go to work for:
a. Offers real training and doesn’t charge you for it
b. Isn’t just pushing products to earn commissions
c. Has a marketing plan that goes beyond your 100 closest friends
d. Has a stake in your success
Use this as your criteria. Don’t waste your time talking to firms that don’t pass this test.
It might be easier to find a lousy job like Scott almost took. But if you take the first offer you get, you’ll end up spinning your wheels and wasting time and money. Worse, you’ll sell rotten investments to people you care about and probably get burned out on the profession completely.
If you’re a financial planner, how do you get your start? What would you recommend?
If you’re trying to break into the business, what is your game plan?
Subscribe & Get Your Free E-Book and E-Course as My Gift to You!
Once a week you'll get unique tips to make smarter money decisions about your investments, retirement, taxes, and career. You'll also get encouragement and ideas to help you get out of debt, earn more money, and generally stop worrying about your money.
Neal Frankle is a Certified Financial Planner™ with over 25 years experience. Subscribe today and tap into this wonderful, free resource!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I had some friends who were hired to sell vacuum cleaners and it was the same situation. It took them 2 weeks to burn out and they made nothing.
This is something I’m pretty interested in, but I don’t have a game plan so I’m going to subscribe to the comments and hope your readers provide some good feedback.
Thanks for the write-up. Always saddened to hear that these schemes continue to exist. Don’t forget that not only does the ‘employee’ get burned in this mess, their family and friends often wind up being pressured to purchase low quality or over-priced products too.
Totally boiler room man. Forget about it! They are just trying to attract innocent graduates who know nothing.
After I finished undergrad and right before grad school I was lured in by the muses of big broker/dealer sales. I didn’t know any better and I thought I was getting a leg up because I knew I wanted to be a financial planner and I was already accepted into my master’s program for it. I’ll tell you it was the worst summer ever, I didn’t make it much farther than the liscensing because, already thinking like a planner, I challenged my supervisors and refused to “push” because I didn’t feel right about it. It wasn’t what financial planning was supposed to be, or what I knew about it at that point anyways. So when the following fall came I was a full time grad student, walked out of their with all my lisc. and started an internship with a fee based planner. I haven’t looked back since. My advice would be to find a planner that you get along with and that has the ability to employ you and start learning the process there if you have the chance def keep going with the education too. My CFP credits and masters degree in financial planning opened so many doors early on. I wouldn’t be the stunning vision of the Financial Coach at Financially Digital you see before you if I didn’t have all that
Nunzio,
I almost fell for a similar ruse. I ended up working for a bank and that worked out….but it was years ago. At the time, the banks actually wanted to do right by their clients.
It is easy to get hired into the financial services business. Many of the companies out there still hire the same way. Get as many bodies as possible to start, milk their databases and then keep their clients when they fail out of the industry. I think the honest companies will say that it’s not easy and to be successful either you or they have to have a game plan to get started. Some companies will have a mentoring program where they match you up with a veteran which can be a good way to start. I am biased and will say that if you plan to stay in the industry, take the time to get some of the credentials like the CFP designation.