CheckMate

I see a lot of things, especially in some forums I’m familiar with, that claim to describe just what life looks like for a successful financial advisor in a big wirehouse these days. Let’s just say I don’t always have a lot of confidence in some of what I read, so whenever I see something I know is representative of “the real deal”, I like to point potential advisors toward it.

So, here’s one of those for you…

Susan Yelen just made the list of Barron’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisers, and was recently interviewed by her local newspaper, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. She talks about a lot of things, including how she came to be a financial advisor, teaming, what she discusses with clients, what it’s like being a woman in what has traditionally been a male industry, and so on.

There’s a wealth of information in what’s really a very short article - please go read the original and I think you’ll see what I mean:

Making the list - Susan Yelen on exclusive list of financial pros

More interesting data from Chris Russell’s blog this morning in a post called “Job seekers hate the recruiting process, survey says”, and it only highlights what I’ve been saying all along - you need to strongly consider working with a good recruiter as part of your job search, particularly if you’re looking for a financial advisor position with one of the major wirehouses.

The title of the post is misleading (not intentionally), because what’s described really isn’t the recruiting process, it’s the application process, and, more specifically, that done on company websites.

Chris describes a recent Hodes Group survey of job seekers’ experiences after they applied for a job on a company website. Here’s the results:

• 41% said they never received a response
• 28% decided not to submit a resume or application after looking at what they would have to do
• 15% said they were invited for an interview
• 11% said they received a timely acknowledgment of their submission
• 5% said they received an acknowledgment some time later

Bottom line: less than a third got any response, and only 15% were asked to interview. I don’t know if those numbers are representative of job seekers’ experience with the websites of our client companies, but based on my experience, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were.

I do know this - this is where a good recruiter comes into play, and I can speak directly to this one since we do it every day and have been for years. We determine if you are a strong candidate for a particular position before you ever spend your time filling out the application on one of our client companies’ websites, and once you do fill it out, you will get an interview.

To begin with, we either make it easy to respond to one of our listings, or we contact you first if we see your resume and you’re of interest to us. Either way, your investment of time up to that point is very limited.

Now, if you respond to one of our listings, I can’t promise that you’re going to hear from us. You may not be a strong enough candidate and so you won’t hear back, but, again, you’ll only have very little time invested at that point.

I can tell you, though, that if you are a good candidate, you will be speaking to one of us, and as quickly as we can make that happen. Only after we talk at some length and confirm your qualifications and serious interest do we then have you go to a company website and fill out the application.

And guess what? Our interview rate at that point is 100%.

Our clients know that we know what they are looking for - that’s why they pay us - and that if we send them someone, that person is worth interviewing. It’s that simple.

Frankly, the harsh reality is that if you’re not a strong enough candidate to get a response from us, you aren’t very likely going to get a positive response by going in direct to the company, either. On the other hand, if you are a strong candidate, you still might not get a call, because your application doesn’t jump out at the hiring manager. And if you’re somewhere in-between, i.e., a good candidate but you need a little help getting that across to the hiring manager…well, the stock online application just isn’t going to do that for you.

I know this may sound like yet another sales pitch from a recruiter, but I can only tell you how things are. You can take your chances, just go to the company websites, spend a lot of time filling out the applications, and hope somebody calls. Or you can vastly improve your chances of actually getting hired by working with a solid recruiter.

Up to you…

Probably seems like plain old common sense, but you might be surprised…

Take a good look at this post from Martin Burns, the Recruiting Manager at ZoomInfo, about how to tell a recruiter you’re not interested when one contacts you. There are a lot of good tips here that go way beyond that initial subject:

How Do You Say No to a Recruiter?

Not much I can add, other than to say that we always strive to be the “good recruiter” that Martin describes in that post. And, naturally, we hope that you’ll have the kind of reaction to us that he recommends.