Virginia Heyer, managing director of Strategy One Advice Network in Chatswood, NSW, has hired four graduates in total, and three of them currently work in the business. Heyer says the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.
She says that before Strategy One embarked on hiring graduates the firm mapped out a clear plan to give them exposure and experience of different parts of the business.
“We only keep them in each spot for three months so they do not get bored,” she says.
“These are intelligent individuals, and if you’re going to stick them in a corner and expect them to continue doing admin for 12 months, you’re sadly mistaken. They want more than that, but they do not want to be pushed too hard, either. My experience is they get their limits. You can’t expect them to arrive day one and write a plan.”
Heyer expects graduates to develop into associate financial planners – capable of taking phone calls from clients and answering questions, but short of developing full-blown SoAs – within two years of being hired.
The cost of hiring a graduate is not exorbitant. Heyer says the going rate is between $40,000 and $45,000 a year, and graduates are prepared to forgo high starting salaries in return for training and development opportunities.
“You’re not paying them that much, but you’re giving them a wealth of experience,” Heyer says.
“And if they’re good, you get a lot out of them. They are not the first ones to leave the office in the afternoon. They don’t work by the clock. I give all Gen Y and younger some flexibility on working hours, because a lot of them are just not morning people. Their start time can be anything from 8am to 9.30am – but their finishing time has to match that. Seriously, they just give so much. They are heads down, bums up. This generation is just so much smarter about the way they work. They get in, and they get their job done.”
Heyer says employers need to bear in mind that a graduate won’t always stay with the business forever – and that’s OK.
“As a smaller business in the past we’ve always thought we’ll have a staff member forever and we get disappointed when they leave, [but it’s] kind of our job to get them to a point where they should leave us, if we don’t have anything in the business for them,” she says.
“It’s good for you to help them go somewhere else, to the next level. That’s kind of your job.”
