Hurdles to growth

A new survey of college-educated women found a variety of reasons why more are not interested in becoming financial advisers. The survey — commissioned by the Insured Retirement Institute and detailed in a report released today — found that 40% of those who said they do not wish to become a financial adviser feel the career is not interesting enough. Another 34% said they are content in their current jobs, and 10% said they are not good with numbers. But about 25% of the women surveyed said they became interested in becoming an adviser after hearing more about the profession, including that the median salary is $60,000 and increasing. Of that group, 57% said training costs of up to $5,000 would make them less likely to pursue the profession, and 40% said that needing three years of relevant experience or two years of apprenticeship would make them less likely to seek becoming an adviser. According to the IRI study, about 73% of those interested in becoming an adviser said that “trainee” positions, in which an individual would work and be paid while training to be a certified financial planner, would make them more likely to pursue the career. Larry Roth, chief executive of Advisor Group and chairman of the board for IRI, said he hopes in a decade the adviser population will be half women, mirroring the population at large. “Our clients and future clients are out of alignment with our advisers,” he said. “We really need more advisers in general and we need them to be more reflective of the real world.” Advisor Group, where 15% of its 6,000 advisers are women, is hosting a conference this week in Chicago to identify what their successful female advisers like about being an adviser and to build mentor programs around what they enjoy.