“Financial services firms have to start recruiting the half-million college students who may be interested in becoming advisors, or risk having demand for financial advice outstrip supply within 10 years, according to a recent study, Regeneration: How Gen Y Could Revitalize the Industry and Bring New Life to Your Firm.
These are the facts according to the new study by Pershing. “The industry is constantly re-recruiting the same pool of aging advisors and ignoring millennials,” Pershing director Kim Dellarocca said at a roundtable discussion of the study in New York City.
“At the same time it’s going to need 237,000 new advisors to cover those who will retire within a decade, and right now only 5% of advisors are younger than 30. Employers clearly need to think about recruiting differently.”
Ironically, of the 500 undergraduates surveyed in the study, only 7% indicated even an interest in becoming a financial advisor. Only 25% were even familiar with the financial advisor advisor career. This generation (born post 1980) is interested in helping people; so there is a need for advisors to appeal to their philanthropic tendencies.
“To broaden the pool of recruits, the study recommends, financial advisors need ‘new engagement strategies’.”
And what are those? See the recommendations here.