What’s it really like?

Donald Cameron, 25 has been a Financial Adviser for 3 years and is currently working at St. James’s Place. He studied Economics and History at University.

Typical day job

My job is normally quite varied and I work on a variety of inheritance tax, pension and investment issues. I used to deal with mortgages a lot more but the amount of paperwork involved and low pay becomes infuriating.

I don’t work for an independent company but am a multi-tied adviser. However, we do have a wide range of products. I work for a small firm within the overall practice and we’re all responsible for finding our own clients. I’m normally in the office by 8:30 and I will always spend at least 30 minutes catching up with the Financial Times. This isn’t always necessary in this profession but I personally believe it is very important. As with most offices I will then catch up on e-mail and post. We’re supposedly a paperless office but if you saw my desk you’d realize that’s not the case.

Each day I will normally have at least 5 or 6 documents arrive from clients – signed application forms and the like and around ten pieces of information come in from clients’ investment/ pension providers. Following an initial interview with the client we normally use Letters of Authority, signed by the client, and write to all their existing investment providers. This can be a long winded process and I’ve known some providers take as long as 2 months to write back and then send the wrong information. Once we have all this information I will normally build a spreadsheet to work out all the valuations and, if necessary, projections for a client’s income. Following on from my notes (which need to be clear and comprehensive) from the first meeting I will then look at what the best products are for the client and what their objectives are. What this means is selecting the correct product. For example, if someone is making an investment I would look at how much risk they want to take and recommend an ISA first and the type of investments i.e. gilts, bonds, equities or other, depending on the risk the client wants to take.

A lot of my day can thus be spent writing reports to clients with my advice. I will normally have an initial meeting with a client and then, after obtaining all the information, write a report to them and attend a follow up meeting. As a lot of my clients are working, my meetings are normally in the evenings and this means I often won’t finish till about 8 or 9p.m.

The other major element of my job is networking. I will always try to attend at least two events a week with the potential to meet new clients. Normally these are either in an evening or at breakfast meetings.

What do you like about the job?

I’m very much a people person so the chance to meet new people and talk with them is the biggest thing for me.

What do you dislike about the job?

Paperwork! I spend considerable amounts of time filling in application forms which drives me insane. This can also be quite a difficult element of the job as for health insurance you have to ask clients very personal questions and delve into their past to ensure that there is nothing that would void any insurance contract.

What advice would you give to someone thinking of doing this job?

It’s very important to be patient and people-orientated. There is a large element of selling something to people and, in a difficult financial market, educating an individual is as important as advising them. It’s also imperative that you have the client’s best interests in mind. I have already come across several cases of poor financial advice and the consequences and opportunity costs for the client can be huge.

What job(s) do you think you might do after this role (i.e. career progression)?

I have always been interested in the markets and trust aspects of the role, so if I was to move on it would probably be in a research capacity for an investment house or to work more on the legal side. However, the latter would entail a lot of re-training.

What other inside-information can you give to help people considering this career?

Being a Financial Adviser does provide you with a lot of flexibility and you can often build a career around your family. Make sure that you are interested in finance as the investment environment in particular is becoming increasingly complex and the old school of financial adviser is having to revive itself or become extinct. Spend some time with an adviser if you’re really interested in this career to get a feel for the office environment and the kind of clients you will be working with.