Demand for financial planning talent is traditionally skewed towards experienced candidates, but the rising bar of education standards means graduates are in high demand.
“How do we get people coming in with a base level education, and an interest in the right reasons for being in the industry, without just expecting someone to come in with the right experience?” asks Alisdair Barr, managing director, Grad Mentor.
To help address this issue, Barr established the networking business linking financial planning graduates with industry around two and a half years ago.
“Some businesses say ‘we really like these students, but we just don’t have the time to invest in growing them’. That’s a really common conundrum.”
Its most recent ‘speed networking’ event was held in Sydney last week, attracting 18 students and 32 other attendees, including financial planning practices and industry service providers.
Representatives from the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and the Financial Planning Association (FPA) also attended, both being supporters of Grad Mentor.
“One of the key drivers is that we want to get new entrants excited about this industry. We want a conversation between a high school student and his or her parents…and to see financial planning on the table as an ultimate career path,” Barr says.
“I think there’s lack of awareness. The public perception of the industry is not conducive to young people necessarily seeing it as a career choice, and there needs to be a solution to that.”
Starting at CBA
Barr’s own background in the financial planning division of Commonwealth Bank and Colonial First State (CFS) inspired the launch of Grad Mentor.
He started in paraplanning, before developing into a business development manager role consulting with Commonwealth Bank-owned financial planning practices across Australia.
“I had a fair understanding of how small to medium-sized financial planning businesses work, how the big businesses work, and what sort of people are the right fit for them,” Barr says.
After leaving CFS, Barr initially started helping out a few businesses he knew, before holding his first official networking event last July.
He has now held 11 of them around the country. These networking events connecting financial planning businesses with graduates are central to Grad Mentor’s offering.
University partnerships
Grad Mentor has partnered with 12 tertiary institutions, presenting to students, providing information packs and addressing on-campus career information sessions.
Barr says he has worked with some previously, having an ongoing relationship with others. They include the University of Western Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of Wollongong, Macquarie University and Sydney Institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE).
He has also worked with the University of Western Australia along with Deakin and La Trobe Universities in Melbourne, and is in discussions with another.
Beyond just a technical overview about the role of financial planners, he also discusses the benefits financial planning brings to Australians, along with the work of the AFA and FPA.
How it works
The process starts with interested graduates contacting Grad Mentor online, uploading their resume and completing a questionnaire before then completing an online cognitive and psychometric assessment.
“Sometimes I’ll get 130 graduates applying via psychometric assessment. It always varies. We don’t just fill a number.
“That first application process, if we stand in front of 150 [at a university], we might get 40 apply, and then we ultimately take four or five of them.”
A candidate’s application to attend an event starts with an online cognitive and psychometric assessment.
Graduate mentorship
Barr emphasises its12 day mentorship program. As part of this, a select group of applicants take part in behavioural interviewing, which quizzes them on questions similar to those they might receive in a corporate assessment environment.
Then students are selected to attend the event. Before this, phone-based sessions are held to assist candidates with their ‘elevator pitch’ in projecting themselves most effectively.
Graduates are also coached on their individual ‘selling point’. Something highly individual, this may include a strong background in retail customer service, a strong sporting background, or a family history emphasising the importance of financial advice.
