Recruiting a New Generation of Advisers

Retirement plan advisories, many of which need to cultivate new employees, should look to adapt to a new generation of junior advisers, one diverse in both background and strengths, according to experts at the 2023 PLANADVISER National Conference.

Don’t Scout Only in Obvious Cohorts

Leland Bishop, a senior retirement plan consultant for the Liberty Capitol Group in UBS Private Wealth Management, suggested recruiting new hires who might not come from a purely financial or investing background.

“When we talked to college graduates, their courses were focused on investment management, and they were focused on sales and trading,” Bishop told an audience of advisers in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Those were the kinds of groups that came through for recruiting.”

However, the job of a retirement plan adviser is more focused on governance, compliance, meeting with clients and educating participants, he said, which does not always align with that group’s interest areas.

“We tend actually to try and look at folks who have more of a management track or somebody who’s interested in psychology,” he said. “We’ve got some good hires out of those areas. The finance folks, you interview them because they’re excited, but we really get more success from other tracks.”

While universities may have financial planning programs, most institutions do not offer specific education on becoming a retirement plan adviser, said Chris Jamail, the chief marketing officer at TCG, a Hub International company. That means considering other attributes in finding new hires.

“Just having folks that show up with the hustle and that are willing to do stuff without you asking, taking on projects,” prove to be significant additions, he said. “You get those more than those who know the technical side. [Employees with hustle are ones] you can very much more easily train.”

Adding to Culture, Rather Than Fitting In

Employers should also be aware that employees entering the industry today are often more diverse than even in the recent past, said Chuck Williams, managing partner and CEO at Finspire and part-time financial planning professor at Northwestern University since 2005.

“My first class was all white males; now they make up less than half [of my students],” Williams said. “There is a far more diverse group of people now, not just male / female, but also ethnic backgrounds and just general backgrounds. They’re also not all in their 20s; sometimes they’re in their 30s, they’re career-changers.”

Williams said he and Finspire colleagues talk about finding “culture adds” to the company instead of “culture fits,” so diversity can be approached as an asset.

Williams said it is important to keep an eye on recruitment trends, so advisories are not just looking for staff with similar backgrounds to themselves.

Williams also recommended resisting the temptation to make a “mini me” of a junior staffer, and to instead encourage employees to carve out their own path. He recounted a time when a young, female employee did a great job on a retirement plan committee review. In response, he offered an example of how he would have done it differently.

“She said, ‘OK, but you told me to do it my way. This was my way.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re absolutely right,’” he told the audience. “I’m really glad we had that kind of relationship where she could feel comfortable saying that to me. [The fact that] I would’ve done it differently doesn’t mean that it was the right way.”