Job Responsibilities
Percentage wise, my day is spent as follows:
Compliance: 10%
On the phone calling clients: 25%
Staff Meetings: 10%
Lunch: 5%
Administration for investments: 20%
Administration for credit: 5%
Meeting Clients: 25%
My role as a Financial Planner is to manage the assets and debt
of a select group of clients for the bank. My job is to renew
their investments as they come due, review their investment
portfolios to ensure that we are still on track, and to meet
their credit and mortgage needs. My role is to develop a
relationship with these clients over time to make their families
and themselves feel comfortable enough to transfer outside
assets to the bank and to have us manage those assets on an
ongoing basis. My job is also to develop and implement my
clients' goals into a financial plan that will take them to
where they want to go - whether it be retiring early or paying
off their mortgage earlier than normal.
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Job Requirements
Most Financial Planners that get hired have at least an
undergraduate degree although this is not a requirement. The
bank likes to see that as a student you had the discipline
required to work hard to obtain your goal. Furthermore,
university grads tend to be more organized and have better time-
management skills than people who didn't go to university. It
doesn't matter what discipline your degree is in, as long as you
have one. It also doesn't matter if you graduated with honours
or at the bottom of your class.As long as you have good social
skills and those two or three letters after your name, you will
be laughing all the way to the bank (no pun intended).
What is most important upon graduating is that you take and pass
your Canadian Securities Course (equivalent to the "Series 7" I
believe in the U.S. ) which is the course that all investment
advisers must take to be able to sell securities. Once you
obtain this, you should get a job no matter how low on the totem
pole you are. You should even try to get a job at the bank while
you are taking this course. Once you obtain your CSC, you should
decide whether you wish to deal more with people or numbers. If
you are a people-person, you may want to take the necessary
courses to obtain your Certified Financial Planner (CFP)
designation. If you are more analytical, you should try to
obtain your Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. By
the time you obtain either of these designations, you will have
a few years experience under your belt and you will have
employers falling over themselves to hire you. Don't be
discouraged if you have to work for a year or two for a pitance.
The reason for this is because all you have with your degree is
academic experience. Couple this academic background with your
youth and working experience after a year or two and you will
see your income and job responsibilities increase dramatically.
There are many opportunities for advancement in banks because
they have so many employees that get promoted, transferred,
quit, etc.
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Uppers
1. Clients - Most clients are awesome to deal with and you can have alot of fun
with them.
2. Bank - You don't necessarily have to work downtown at a central office when
you work for a bank. This is important because you won't have the cost overheads
that many other employees face (parking, the lure of shopping malls beckoning you
to buy worthless things that you'll never use, etc.)
3. You learn so much about how to handle your own personal finances responsibly.
4. The bank usually will have a great employee stock purchase plan where they
will match 50% of what you put in to the plan up to a certain level. Believe me,
this adds up pretty quickly.
5. Unlike lawyers, brokers, etc. you don't have to dress in a $5,000 Armani suit
, drive a BMW, etc. to impress anyone. The culture is very different. You have
alot of opportunity to sock your money away for a new home, car, vacation, etc.
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Downers
1. Clients - Whenever you deal with the public, you are going to
have that 5% of the public that is brutal to deal with. I've
been spat at, verbally abused, yelled at, shoved, robbed, etc. -
but these are extreme cases. Keep in mind that the worst
experiences usually happen when you are a teller. If you can get
hired as a personal banker, you will avoid a lot of this.
2. Bureaucracy - sometimes this makes you want to pull your hair
out.
3. Learning to say "No" - most people have a really hard time
telling people bad news. However, this is the best training
ground to learn this valuable lesson.
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Lifestyle
Business Travel - none (except for maybe training)
Company Social Events - Christmas parties are usually a lot of fun.
Dress Code - formal
Diversity - This is really important to the bank. Honestly, having people of
different cultural backgrounds allows you to do your job so much more efficiently
when dealing with clients. It's also nice not to be stuck with a bunch of boring
Anglo-Saxons (I know, I am one).
Work Hours - At times it can be stressful because you may have 4 or 5 clients
wanting mortgages simultaneously. The trick is to just take one at a time and if
you can't do them all, refer the clients to one of your colleagues.
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Compensation
Base Salary: $55,000 CAD
Bonus: Varies between $5,000 - $15,000 depending on how good
your year was in sales.
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Advice to Jobseekers
As discussed above, never stop learning. Once you get your foot
in the door, get your brokers licence and then your CFP or CFA.
If you have a boss that won't promote you or who gives you tiny
raises, send out your resume to other banks. They will likely
hire you in a higher position and for more money. Don't be
afraid of not having job stability with one bank - as long as
you stay in the industry this is what is important. If you have
a great boss that encourages promotion, etc. take him/her up on
it and apply for jobs internally.
It's a good job for people that want to be able to leave their
work at the office and who want balance between family and work
in their life. You will find ,though, that as you approach the
VP level, you will start having to put in more hours.
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