Various career opportunities exist throughout the finance industry, including a career as a financial advisor. A financial advisor is a professional who can play a vital role in assisting individuals or organizations with various financial matters.
What is a Financial Advisor?
Within a financial advisor career, an individual assists clients with their financial goals, such as retirement, paying off debt, paying off a mortgage loan, saving for college, buying a vacation home, and more. Some key benefits include professional and financial growth, access to investment opportunities, the ability to help others, and compensation.
Throughout a financial advisor career, some of the most common responsibilities are:
Advising Clients: One of the most common and essential responsibilities within a financial advisor’s career is their ability to provide financial advice and thoughts to their clients.
Managing Investments: Financial advisors often assist their clientele with investing their money, which can involve stocks and funds.
Monitoring Money: When working with clients, a financial advisor often helps monitor the planned strategy to ensure it is working efficiently.
Structuring Plans: A key element in a financial advisor’s career is establishing a short—and long-term plan. This provides your clients with peace of mind over their financial matters.
Analyzing Financial Strategies: To maximize a financial strategy, a financial advisor may shift different strategies or financial elements to ensure their strategies provide their clients with the best outcomes.
Determining Financial Goals: Many clients want to set financial goals, and as a financial advisor, you can assist them with deciding them.
Within a financial advisor career, you may experience additional responsibilities; however, it is crucial to ensure you develop essential skills to better assist you with your financial advisor career.
Skills Needed as a Financial Advisor
Financial advisors must have various soft skills, hard skills, and knowledge of the finance industry to assist others. Some of these skills include:
Client Relationships Skills: To maintain a financial advisor career, you need to be able to build relationships with clients. Being professional, positive, and considerate can encourage other clients to refer individuals to you, which in turn can help you grow your financial advisor career business and ultimately increase your revenue.
Business Development Skills: To have a successful financial advisor career, you must track sales figures and goals. As a result, you may have to present information to others or negotiate pricing.
Research: A key element within a financial advisor career is to do extensive research to ensure you’re providing your clients with the most accurate information from a historical perspective.
Analytical Thinking: As industry and circumstance changes arise, a financial advisor must determine the best solutions or ways to pivot to ensure their client’s finances do not suffer. As different products emerge and rules change, a financial advisor must think analytically about the best option for their client.
Empathy: To develop meaningful connections with clients throughout your financial advisor career, you must be able to showcase empathy. Some clients you experience may be very sensitive about their economic status or share lots of personal information; therefore, you need high emotional intelligence.
How to Launch Your Financial Advisor Career
Pursuing some form of educational training, such as the 14-week* online financial advisor training course offered by the Financial Advisor Training Institute (FATI), is essential to launch your financial advisor career. This accelerated training course will provide comprehensive training on economic topics and their application to real-world cases.
Additionally, the lessons will provide the necessary information to prepare you for the certification and licensing exams, making you professionally qualified within the financial advisor career field.
Financial Advisor Career Opportunities
During a career as a financial advisor, there are various options depending on your area of interest. Some of the career opportunities include:
Financial Coach- As a financial coach, you help your clients understand the basics of financials and how to build wealth over time.
Financial Planner- A financial planner is responsible for helping their clients map out their financial futures by targeting specific goals.
Broker- A broker plays a key role in buying and selling securities within a stock market for their clients.
Portfolio Manager- To help manage an investment portfolio, you will often find organizations or individuals seeking out a portfolio manager.
Wealth Managers- As a wealth manager, you directly assist your clients with substantial capital management of their wealth over the short and long term.
Licensing Requirements in a Financial Advisor Career
Any individual in the financial advisor career field advising clients about investments, buying stocks, or selling stocks or bonds on their behalf is legally required to register with the state you’re practicing in. However, to apply for state registration, you’re responsible for taking a series of exams:
Life & Health Insurance: This is the first license you will need to obtain, in order to be able to sell or implement insurance products.
Securities Industry Essentials: This is the first securities exam you will experience as you’re navigating your Financial Advisory Certification requirements and licensing to become a financial advisor. To pass this exam you have to get a 70%.
Series 7- The Series 7 exam can be completed after passing the SIE exam. This exam is often considered to be the most challenging license for a Financial Advisor to attain. Ultimately it measures your readiness to sell complex financial products.
Series 66- After passing the Series 7 exam, you will want to consider the Series 66 exam, which covers a range of topics, including investment vehicle characteristics to economic factors, laws, regulations, and more.
In addition to these exams, there are additional professional certifications you can take to increase your earning potential within a financial advisor career.
What is a Job Placement Program?
A job placement program can assist you with finding a job. They’re often able to help you find roles for which you qualify. For example, FATI guarantees career placement with one of their more than 50 financial broker-dealers if you complete the courses and pass your certification exams.
Begin Your Financial Advisor Career Today
Are you ready to begin your career as a financial advisor? The financial advisor industry has many vast and dynamic career opportunities. Pursuing FATI’s online financial advisor training course can help set you up on the right path for your future.
Resources/Additional Information
*Course length when completed in normal time.
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/financial-advisor-career-pros-and-cons
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/skills-to-be-financial-advisor
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/career/Financial-Advisor/What-Is-How-to-Become
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/careers-for-financial-advisors
https://financialadvisortraininginstitute.org/programs/financial-advisor/
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/what-is-job-placement