A newly qualified adviser posted in an adviser Facebook group recently, asking where they could find practical support now the exams were out of the way. It planted a seed with me, and I found myself going back the next day to read through the comments. They’d worked hard to get qualified, but what they were looking for now was help putting that knowledge into practice. The day-to-day side of actually doing the job.
I’m not an adviser, so I’m coming at this from a slightly different perspective. But through my work at We Complement, I spend a lot of time talking to advice firms about how they operate, and it’s made me think about what helps someone develop from being newly qualified into a really good adviser.
What an exam can’t do
Academies and qualifications do a proper job. They get people through some hard exams and give them a solid grounding in regulation and financial planning. What an exam can’t do is put a real person in front of you.
Real clients don’t arrive as case studies. They might not be sure what they’re asking for. They might have a business, a mortgage, a daughter at university and a parent they’re worried about, and the thing that matters most to them might only come out as you’re putting your coat on.
The skill I’d put near the top of the list is starting the right conversation. That means asking someone what they want their future to look like before you get anywhere near a pension or an ISA, and then properly listening to the answer. It might also mean understanding who else is important in their life and, where it’s appropriate and the client wants them involved, bringing those people into the conversation. A partner, children or sometimes parents. Financial decisions rarely exist in isolation, and understanding the wider picture can make all the difference.
Do that well over a few years and you stop being the person who sends a report once a year. You become someone the client trusts with some of the biggest decisions in their life. That doesn’t arrive with the certificate, and I don’t think it should be expected to. It comes from experience, seeing how different conversations unfold, asking questions and learning from people who’ve been doing it for years.
You can see it in the file
When you work with a lot of firms, you notice how much of an advice file goes back to the conversation that came before it. A fact-find is only as good as the questions someone asked.
If the conversation was a good one, the objectives tend to be clear and specific, and everything after that gets easier. If it was a bit thin, somebody further down the line ends up filling the gaps. That usually means the adviser going back to the client, or the technical planning team asking for more information before they can move forward.
It’s not necessarily about anyone doing a bad job. Sometimes it’s simply experience, knowing which questions to ask, when to dig a little deeper and when something needs exploring further. And that’s exactly the sort of thing that’s difficult to learn from a textbook.
Everyone has a part to play
Academies lay the foundations. Firms provide the opportunity to put that knowledge into practice, with real clients and real situations. And experienced advisers, technical planners and other specialists all have something they can share. I think there’s a real opportunity for those different parts of the profession to work more closely together, particularly when someone is finding their feet.
Passing your exams is a huge achievement, but it’s also just the beginning.
Where we come in
We’re not usually in the room when those client conversations happen, but we see the difference they make to the work that follows. We know what happens when a fact-find gives the technical team everything they need, and we also know the questions that tend to come back when something important is missing.
It’s made me think there’s a useful conversation to be had with adviser academies about what happens after qualification. Could we help newly qualified advisers understand what makes a good fact-find from a technical planning perspective? Not just which boxes need filling in, but why certain information matters and how it affects the advice that follows.
I’d really like to explore putting together a practical guide or session around that, particularly with academies or firms who are already supporting people through those early stages.
It’s also where having experienced technical support available can make a difference. Whether that’s helping with research, working through more complicated cases or picking up questions before the advice is finalised, there’s value in having people to turn to while confidence and experience develop.
You can find out more about how We Complement supports advice firms here.
And if you run an academy, manage an advice team or remember what those first few months as an adviser felt like, I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.
What do you wish had been available once the exams were over?
