How to hire new college grads and turn them into great advisors

The talent shortage in our industry is a big problem, but if you care about the future of wealth management, RIAs must take responsibility for training the next generation of advisors.

I understand why many firms don’t want to hire folks right out of college. A lot of time and energy goes into process, and it will take months, if not years, before those employees become both competent and profitable.

But the fact is that we’ve hired dozens of new college graduates over the years, including one of our top-performing advisors who came to us as a college intern. (He’s gone on to achieve his master's, CFP, and CFA, and has added tremendous value to our firm.)

Granted, not all new college graduates work out. It’s possible that you’ll train a young advisor for two or three years and they’ll be recruited by some other firm offering more money. But while we’ve experienced this, the majority of the new college grads we’ve brought on have stayed loyal.

Here’s how we’ve achieved success in this area. First, we bring on college interns the summer between their junior and senior years. (We already have five lined up for this June.) Yes, it takes time and commitment to ensure these interns have a productive summer. But it also gives us the opportunity to get to know these people and see how they perform in the workplace.

Our intern program has expanded so that we also usually have a few college students working part-time for us during their senior year. Many students need the income, and we benefit from their fresh perspective and sharp minds.

Second, we have a well-defined career path for our new college graduates. We typically tell them it will be five years before they will be handling clients on their own. Even once someone graduates from college, after completing all the requirements for the CFP, it still takes three years of work experience before someone can use the credentials.

Third, we place our new college grads into our associate advisor program, where they have an opportunity to rotate between different departments. For example, they may start out on the financial planning team, where they do data entry and draft financial plans. Then they move on to a stint with the investment committee. And perhaps they work for a few months with our business development folks.

Lastly, much like a journeyman in a trade, we pair our new college graduates with a senior advisor, where they can work side-by-side with one of our best teachers. Not only does this allow the young advisor to get excellent training, but it also enables them to work directly with clients.

Hiring new college graduates doesn’t come without challenges. But we’ve found that overcoming those challenges has been well worth it to our firm’s culture, to the quality of service we provide, and, we believe, to the advisory community at large.

Scott Hanson is co-founder of Allworth Financial, formerly Hanson McClain Advisors, a fee-based RIA with more than $19 billion in AUM.