Financial Planner Life founder Sam Oakes is launching an independent academy, in partnership with NextGen, to be a “first point of call” for anybody thinking about joining the profession.
The academy will focus on administration, mortgage and protection, paraplanning, and financial planning roles.
It will be aimed at anyone who wishes to join the financial planning profession – from graduates to second careerists.
“We are fully inclusive, we are passionate about making the profession more diverse and inclusive,” Oakes told Money Marketing.
The academy is due to launch on 28 September and will cost £19.99 per month to join.
It will give full practical skills training as well as support for the qualifications needed to enter the profession in any role.
Candidates will need to fund their own exams, and the community will offer support on both the practical skills and qualifications needed to work in the financial planning industry.
At launch, the academy will support the Chartered Insurance Institute’s level 4 diploma.
It will look to venture into other qualifications once it becomes established.
“We’ve partnered with NextGen Planners, who are top of their game when it comes to training and developing people with the practical skills and qualifications training,” Oakes told Money Marketing. “They’ve got a 90% pass rate for R01 to R05.
“The practical training and qualification training is powered by NextGen Planners. The career development is powered by Financial Planner Life.
“We’ve come together to create this brand-new ecosystem that supports second careerists, or anybody, to enter the profession.”
Oakes said there is not currently a “clear-cut route” into financial planning like there is into accountancy or solicitor firms.
“There are academies but they’re attached to product providers,” he said.
“And if you join one of those academies, then you are going down the route of joining one of those product providers.
“There wasn’t one out there that was more fully independent.”
Furthermore, he said existing academies are geared towards self-employment.
“That’s a big risk for somebody moving from one career to another if they don’t have the relevant network to lean on,” he said.
“Our aim is to give people more choice of routes into planning, by giving them career education.”
He is hoping that financial planning firms of all shapes and sizes see the benefit of the fully independent academy.
“Through it, they can employ delegates that have attained not only the relevant qualifications, but also the practical and soft skills, reducing the risk for employers,” he said.
Oakes has 15 years’ experience of running a seven-figure recruitment company that specialises in financial planning talent attraction.
Financial Planner Life is also creating an accreditation for employers, due to launch early next year.
“What that means is we’ll put a [financial advice] company through an accreditation to check to make sure that they are an employer of choice, and that they’re doing all the right things to attract and retain the right talent,” said Oakes.
“We’ll look at things like diversity and inclusivity, their well-being proposition, their benefits package, their career development plans. We’ll also look at their interview process.”
The idea is that each year, a company will renew its accreditation.
“They get a score and each year they can go through the process again to make sure they are matching the requirements of what’s expected of an employer these days,” said Oakes.
Alongside this, Financial Planner Life will launch a talent partnership, to help firms attract new talent through non-traditional routes, such as social media marketing, podcasting and YouTube.
“We’ll partner with their internal talent teams, or hiring managers and their marketing teams, to be able to raise the profile of their brand and their businesses, and highlight things that they’re doing well when it comes to recruitment,” said Oakes.
“We want to help drive talent directly to hiring managers, reducing recruitment costs and raising brand awareness; most firms invest very little in recruitment marketing.”
He added that firms could benefit from realising that “the most valuable talent attraction asset any company has is their employees”.
This seems like a fantastic development and I hope it proves to be successful.