trainee financial advisor questions

harry74

Hi

i very recently passed my CeFA exams and wish to embark on a new career in finacial sales, ive been is sales since '97 and sales management since around '05 hitting targets and achieving kpi's in retail. Whats the best way to attain CAS competent advisor status and start practising/advising. I was initially going to go down the mortgages route just as the housing market fell out of favour and saw this as being more diverse but still would like to do my cemap sometime soon.

I have been researching a company called n*w lea* and their stepping stones programme where they halp you gain cas and then you work under them on a self employed basis as far as im aware although im not sure of the cost of this initially and ongoing, the alternative is to cut my teeth with a bank but opportunities seem rare and would mean a pay cut of approx 10-15k which doesnt fill me with joy tbh and would love some advice from advisors or anyone who can advise me oln the best course of action and or feedback

Im a proffessional landlord too and have been toying with the idea of setting up a letting agency/estate agency which in time will provide me the clients/landlords etc to compliment the advising side.

thanks in advance

a newbie

Aegis

harry74 wrote: »

Hi

i very recently passed my CeFA exams and wish to embark on a new career in finacial sales, ive been is sales since '97 and sales management since around '05 hitting targets and achieving kpi's in retail. Whats the best way to attain CAS competent advisor status and start practising/advising. I was initially going to go down the mortgages route just as the housing market fell out of favour and saw this as being more diverse but still would like to do my cemap sometime soon.

I have been researching a company called n*w lea* and their stepping stones programme where they halp you gain cas and then you work under them on a self employed basis as far as im aware although im not sure of the cost of this initially and ongoing, the alternative is to cut my teeth with a bank but opportunities seem rare and would mean a pay cut of approx 10-15k which doesnt fill me with joy tbh and would love some advice from advisors or anyone who can advise me oln the best course of action and or feedback

Im a proffessional landlord too and have been toying with the idea of setting up a letting agency/estate agency which in time will provide me the clients/landlords etc to compliment the advising side.

thanks in advance

a newbie

Hi Harry

First the bad news: CeFA is effectively a redundant qualification in light of the new qualification requirements which will be introduced from the end of next year. This sets the new bar at a level 4 qualification, or Diploma level. You can get one of these in a number of ways, but unfortunately it means a lot more expense to get through. As the qualification requirement to give financial advice has increased, many of the banks will be looking at potential staff who are part Diploma qualified, so getting into those organisations may be harder than previously. That said, if you can show a strong track record in hitting targets, they can always train you up to Diploma standard, so it's not necessarily a lost cause!

The idea of attaining competence and going it alone in a self-employed role is therefore a very dangerous one, as you will be required to bring your qualification level up from Certificate to Diploma while working extremely hard to find enough leads to keep yourself afloat. Compliance will also take up an enormous amount of time if you're trying to work for yourself. If you're self employed but working in partnership with a firm, then that firm will be taking a fairly large cut of your income to provide compliance and any leads they send across, which will leave you needing to spend a lot more of your time generating income, leaving little for studying.

Sadly the banks and other large nationals are probably the most reliable route to Competent Adviser Status. If you have to take a pay cut, bear in mind that the initial pay offers will be for basic only, with your income being significantly topped up by bonus once you start exceeding targets.

It's soulless work and you may end up hating yourself when you know that you can provide better advice, but unfortunately the amount of regulation makes it very difficult to go directly to the point where you can actually offer independent advice. Work there for a year or two, though, and you'll be in the position to take advantage of the number of advisers leaving the industry in 2013, which should mean it becomes a great place to look for better employment opportunities.

Hope that helps!

harry74

firstly for taking the time to read/reply, its appreciated. cheers!:beer:

I started the Cefa exmas in 08 but then with the whole banking downturn i decided to return to it when things picked up a little, so passed the last two modules very recently, thought it would give me a good grounding for the level 4 dip anyway.

Any experience / knowledge of the company i mentioned without giving the name out on a forum Ne* Lea* based in essex.

Id love to be able to advise and genuinely help people as apposed to just hit bank profitablity targets, not a huge fan of banks, there when you dont need then, not there when you do.