The US is changing in terms of the demographics of wealth. Women now control a greater portion of households’ finances, while minority communities are building wealth. However, the composition of today’s financial-planning workforce doesn’t reflect this shift.
Only 25% of the 87,000 CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERSTM professionals are women. Just 6 percent of them are Black, and only 7 percent are Hispanic. The gap between the current state of the financial-planning profession and what is needed in this shifting landscape presents career opportunities for aspiring CFP® professionals, particularly female and minority CFP® candidates.
The CFP Board Center for Financial Planning’s Candidate Referral Program was created to fill this gap. It recently celebrated its first anniversary. This program connects aspiring and existing financial advisors with financial advisory companies. Advisors from these demographics who have signed up for a CFP Board account and indicated their interest in CFP® certification are invited by the Center to opt into the referral program by answering a brief questionnaire about their professional goals and interests. The Center shares contact information of the candidates with companies that are interested in filling a variety positions.
About 1,800 potential candidates have signed up for the referral program to date. Eight participating companies have also made many hires.
Lenet Rivas, one of the program’s most successful candidates, was one. Lenet received numerous offers after joining the program in august 2019. Lenet decided to contact Fidelity and, after speaking with a recruiter, completed a telephone interview, was offered a job as a financial advisor.
“I started in January 2020, and I love it,”Lenet is currently completing Fidelity’s year-long training program, and starting to meet with clients. “The background work the Center did really transpired in my favor. The program created that networking space for me and provided firms to match to — I didn’t have to do that work myself. It makes it easier.”
Lenet believes that the candidate referral program could help increase the number of candidates for financial planning, particularly women. “More women could do this if they knew the pathway,”She said. “There’s a big need for women of color in this field, but minority communities don’t have access to this information.”
Visit this website to learn more about the Center for Financial Planning, and its candidate referral program. https://www.cfp.net/career-and-growth/career-center. Many resources and opportunities exist to assist individuals in starting or advancing along a career in financial planning.
