The Melbourne-based Verse Wealth currently employs one graduate in its team of three. Co-founder and financial adviser James O’Reilly says irrespective
of whether a business is large or small the reasons for hiring graduates “probably do not vary too much”.
“Graduates never use phrases like ‘this is how it’s always been done’. They are really quick to question and, especially the right grad, really quick to question why are we doing this a certain way, and also use their experiences from a range of different businesses to ask, ‘Why can’t we do it more like this other business in a completely different industry or profession?’” O’Reilly (pictured) says.
“That’s been incredibly valuable in terms of our own development.”
O’Reilly says the second reason is “the culture, which is incredibly important”.
“Graduates, when they come into financial planning, have a huge amount of enthusiasm and a huge amount of passion,” he says.
“They’re saying things like, ‘I’ve seen it on paper and now I really want to see it live – I want to live it out’. It just creates an environment internally where everyone is incredibly passionate about the work that you do.”
O’Reilly says the market for hiring graduates is competitive, but small businesses can be just as attractive employers as institutions.
“Without doubt [you must] have a culture where passion can thrive,” he says.
“There’s two elements to that. The first one, in terms of Verse Wealth, is that we love big ideas and we’re always asking how we can make an idea work rather than dismissing it as too hard to implement in our business.
“The second one is making the business about the people that you serve. Something that tertiary financial planning studies are doing an incredibly good job of now is making it about the people.”
O’Reilly says hiring a graduate requires time and commitment, but it has been worthwhile for Verse Wealth and the firm will hire another graduate when the time is right.
He says that a graduate with the right support and development can be in a position to be providing advice and creating statements of advice within three years.
“Our sense and our experience is when you hire someone that’s really passionate, when you create the conditions where they really want to thrive and they want to grow and develop, within a month you really should have a team member who is effective and who is also just a bunch of fun to work with,” he says.
