Financial planning practice Clarity Wealth has launched an in-house recruitment business to serve both its own needs and those of the broader small-to-medium practice arena.
Clarity Recruiting opened for business within the last fortnight, as a separate division of the practice, which itself operates under the Australian Financial Services license of ANZ-owned RI Advice.
Headquartered in the western Sydney hub of Parramatta, Clarity Wealth has nine locations cross New South Wales and Queensland.
“We wanted to build a value proposition, as owners of a financial planning business, and as recruiters and managers of a financial planning business, that was purpose-built for us,” says Nick Hermann, managing director, Clarity Wealth and owner and director of Clarity Recruiting.
He says the costs and drawn out process normally associated with recruiting financial planners to spill specific vacancies are significant challenges for practice owners.
Recruitment lag times are prohibitive
“If a financial planner gives you notice that they’re leaving or going overseas et cetera, they’ll generally give you four weeks notice. You can’t then wait for a recruiter to take a few weeks to get back to you. You lose three months and in the meantime, it’s the clients that suffer.
“You’ve also got to get those new advisers authorised…so we wanted a value proposition whereby we had a database of advisers where we know their skills, accreditations, strengths and weaknesses and where they’re going,” Hermann says.
“We can turn around within 24 to 72 hours and say ‘there are three people’ and then you’re straight into the interviews, and you haven’t lost a month.”
Conor McCarthy, recruitment manager of the new venture, Clarity Recruiting, has worked in financial services recruitment for more than seven years, for a number of mainstream recruitment firms. His role within the new venture will draw on his skills in sourcing and engaging with skilled, qualified financial planners, paraplanners and client services.
Both McCarthy and Hermann describe the aim of the venture as a three-pronged approach. This involves internal recruitment for Clarity Wealth, but also for other RetireInvest practice owners and also for the broader market, particularly smaller non-aligned and independent practices.
Lower price point
Hermann says its pricing will be attractive to other small businesses, estimating it to be on average three to five per cent cheaper than standalone recruiters.
“We’ve spent a lot of the money over the years in this business and in dealer groups recruiting people…the number of people we’ve recruited over the last 10 years is phenomenal.
“Quite often it’s really hard to find recruiters that are responsive, that are happy to take a brief over the phone, to get to know you, and who can go out and quickly [to the market] and come back with three or four CVs,” Hermann says.
“Conor has been in the industry a long time, is well qualified, well respected and the way he goes about recruiting is absolutely synergistic with the way we think it should be done.”
He says this approach is quite unlike any other model in the Australian financial planning space, seeing the symbiotic connection between the recruiter and the practice as particularly advantageous.
“Working within a financial planning business as a recruiter, you’re mixing with planners on a day-to-day basis, you see what goes on in the sales meeting, you see the work rate they need to achieve in client appointments, and have a far better appreciation for the advisory skills. Generally, recruiters don’t have that advantage.
“You can’t tell me that they know as much as someone who’s actually working in the business with financial planners on a daily basis…his understanding of what a small business would need culturally and from a client relationship management perspective is far greater…and I think that’s going to really resonate with the owners and principals of small planning businesses,” Hermann says.
