CeFA & CeMAP training

cbrennan83

Hi All,

I'm a 24 year old Business Graduate looking to make the move to becoming a fully qualified Financial Advisor.

I Graduated in 2005 and have since been working in a sales capacity. Firstly with a finance company selling Loans & Insurances and secondly (and currently) selling Media solutions.

I want to get back into Finance and this route is of particular interest.

I was after a bit of advice on the prospects of taking the qualifications and what can i expect once I have completed them?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Conrad

What can you expect?

Well, given the current worldwide mortgage famine which will take a few years to play out, you can expect a lions den!

Get into debt management / miselling litigation is my advice, not mortgage broking

dunstonh

investment business is booming but you cant just expect to walk into an IFA role without having done some time as a mortgage adviser or tied insurance agent first (indeed, from 2009 the FSA proposals will rule it out altogether). actually thats not true, there are some salesforces that will do it but its not a good way to do it.

To become fully qualified you are talking about chartered status and only a small handful have that level of qualifications. You are talking about 12 qualifications (not including the 3 simple mortgage tests). The first 5 investment modules are relatively simple if you put the effort it. You can pass those over 12 months. Then you have the 4 diploma level exams which only have 2 sittings a year so realistically would take you another 2 years. you then have the advanced diploma (which is degree level) which would take another 3 years or so to get.

Whilst the chartered status is important when dealing with ultra high net worth it would be overkill for the vast majority of IFAs. The diploma is the level that the FSA have proposed from 2009 for IFAs. Although tied insurance reps wont need to have the diploma.

I was after a bit of advice on the prospects of taking the qualifications and what can i expect once I have completed them?

Prospects will depend more on your business model, personality and luck than your qualifications. Over half of new advisers leave the industry within 2 years having failed to make a success of it. Most of those end up in debt. Most common failure is down to lack of clients.

Another stat is that the top 20% of advisers write 80% of the business. If you are in that top 20% then you can expect earnings in the 6 digit range. If you are in the 80% then you can expect quite poor earnings.

Its a very hard profession to get into nowadays and succeed at as all the old natural career paths have gone with the exception of doing time at a bank.

Conrad

Dunst

I agree on the earnings bit. People think you push a few knobs and spew out a few quotes!
The reality is this business has about the highest staff turnover levels of any sector as only a small proportion can really cut it.

When I was a sales manager we found that about 80% staff losses were the norm over a 5 year period.