One of my aspirations in my life is to become a financial advisor. As I was doing some research, I discovered that most people who firms hire as financial advisors are people who were generally financial advisors from the beginning, or were students fresh out of college. Im 21, and I still have atleast 2 more years to graduate from college. What are the odds of me being hired by an employer? I have the qualities that all financial advisors have besides the degree and certification.
Due to the fact that I havent graduated from college yet I wouldn't be eligable to get my Certfied Financial Planner license, but I think I could still become registered as a Registered Investment Advisor. Is there anything else i could do to make me look more attarctive to employers?
If you want to break into FA, you really just need to network. It's a lot easier to get into than you think and I would start with your alumni contacts. There was an alumni who I cold-emailed and we setup a call, and he said, if I wasn't graduating, he'd be able to start me up no problem. Generally, FAs are friendly, they'll respond to your emails, and might even be able to start you off in an entry level position if you ask them.
Reminder, FA is difficult work and is largely about finding people to bring on so that you can sell products to them.
It's all about sales. If you don't mind cold-calling, harassing friends and family and truly enjoy salesmanship, then you have a shot.
FA positions aren't that competitive, relative to other jobs in the industry. If you are good and really provide value to your clients, you can build a nice book of business and earn a solid living.
FA at a BB here.
I find a lot of people want to be an FA because they think of a guy making $300k+ per year, taking high net worth clients to fancy dinners, and telling them how much money they are going to make them. A Financial Advisor is only that for MAYBE 1-4 clients. But the majority is being a salesman.
You get your clients by doing all kinds of sales tactics, primarily cold calling. Imagine sitting and doing 250 cold calls per day and maybe 40 follow up calls. If you enjoy that, then you're perfect for it. In my training program, most classes (separated by month of hire), there is usually a 25% attrition rate in the first 10 months, then between 80-95% in 3-5 years. So its definitely tough.
I'm not actually sure you can get licensed (Series 7 at least), I thought you had to have a firm sponsor. The best thing you can really do is become super active in with your alumni association (maybe get a job in the alumni office?). Your belief that they take a lot of people right out of college isn't totally correct. I'd say it's less than 50% of trainees. They want you to be able to sell like crazy, and a huge network of people you can call to get their money. So what you can do to become more attractive as a financial advisor is get active in your alumni network, and get an outside sales position somewhere, and absolutely kill it.
Currently, I'm trying to leave my job as an FA (interview next week!), so you can see how much I enjoy it. I can't think of many things I hate more than cold calling.
I don't want to be a stock broker or an insurance agent.
I don't mind cold calling, but I don't want to feel force to sell products to clients for merely profits, without at least providing quality service. I do not want to go through years of working feeling like a scam artist. I would rather be a personal financial planner. Someone who gets paid based on the financial advice they give.
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