While recruiters are getting gray hair just thinking about where to find the next crop of financial advisors, a new Fidelity Investments study says they may be going about the task all wrong.
Recruiters have it tough these days. The advisory profession isn't getting any younger, with Cerulli estimating that 8,600 will potentially depart the field each year for the next 13 years. Efforts to bring in millennials to succeed retiring advisors don't seem to be working very well. The general wisdom is that millennials just aren't interested, when the truth, according to Fidelity's Recruiting Redefined study, is something quite different.
To start with, many young professionals and college students just don't know the profession is even there. Only two out of 10 Gen Ys are clued in to the advisory field, but when they learned more about it, almost half said they'd consider it as a career.
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Then there are the perceived drawbacks. Millennials are turned off by how firms present the job, with one of the top reasons they give for disinterest being "too much pressure to sell." They're also not turned on by the idea of having to work on commission.
Hiring managers, on the other hand, are focusing on sales ability when considering candidates, rather than on many of the other skills that a financial advisor needs — such as communication skills, interpersonal skills and problem-solving ability — thus not only alienating potential candidates, but also overlooking some other essential abilities that may be more important.
Stressing the positive aspects of the job that appeal to millennials — such things as work/life balance, job/career security and a high income — made 51 percent of students and 40 percent of young professionals much more interested in the field.
Hiring managers are also more focused on finding someone who is already credentialed than in hiring someone from a related field, such as financial or insurance jobs, retail banking or professional, scientific and technical services, and then providing training. Yet the study found that young professionals with workplace experience but no certifications outperformed advisors directly out of school.
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