“Students respond to these things very positively, whether they have made the choice knowingly, or perhaps unknowingly, to follow a particular career path through their course of study,” Brimble says.
“These are the sorts of things that [make them go], ‘Wow, this is real; there is a career attached to this’.
“Yes, they’ll see the money and go, ‘Wow, that’s good!’, but students are very smart these days. They’ll see the value of it in terms of building a network with industry, developing some of those skills that are difficult to get in a simulated university environment.”
Steve Helmich, AMP’s director of financial planning, advice and services, says the idea came from the US, where Ameriprise Financial runs a similar program within the college system.
“I suppose we got enthused about it when we saw it in action, but what really excited us was when we spoke to some of the contestants in the challenge,” Helmich says.
“We managed to talk to the Ameriprise people, and then we met the people who won the challenge last year.
“You just couldn’t help but be impressed with what it’s doing for financial planning and professionalism and for [students] seeing financial planning as a profession – so much so that some of the people we spoke to in the challenge were saying, ‘Yes, I was going down the accounting path, but when I saw this and I saw this opportunity I changed direction and I’m heading towards financial planning’.
“We’re really keen to see financial planning in Australia recognised as a profession; anything we can do to increase that professional profile in the marketplace is what we’re involved in.
“The aim for us is to increase the profession of financial planning in the university system in Australia, so more people consider it as a potential career opportunity, and more people see it in the light of a growing profession; and so that more people see it as rising in its own professionalism.
“There’s no hard bottom line in it for us; there’s no, ‘If you invest in this, you’ll get this’; it is about professionalism. It is about making sure that more Australians see financial planning as a profession that supports them, and that they can benefit from.”
