Amanda Moore is getting life back after finishing CFP exam

Nine months after the start of her financial advisory journey, the moment of truth arrived for Amanda Moore last Saturday when she sat for the CFP exam. For the 23-year-old Virginia Tech alumna, the certified financial planner exam was the center of her life for the past three months. “I [would] wake up, study, go to work and study some more,” said Ms. Moore, a resident in financial planning at Cornerstone Wealth Management in Edina, Minn. “My thought process after the exam is to relax and get my life back a little bit,” she added. “I'm excited to go to the gym and not feel like I should be studying.” Her strongest topics, Ms. Moore said, are retirement, some aspects of taxes, and investments. She credits her strength in the latter topic to the additional investment-focused courses she took while in the financial planning program at Virginia Tech. The financial-planner-to-be is finding that all the work she put in at school and preparing for the CFP exam is leading to real-life results with the clients she has been seeing. (More: Tuning in to clients' emotions) Lately, Cornerstone has been scooping up a number of new Gen X and Gen Y clients, some of whom are the children of existing clients. Those younger clients are facing a number of major milestones, including weddings, having children and buying homes. They're also laying the groundwork for retirement planning. “We've talked about some things, like [required minimum distributions], principles of investment, and it's very cool to do that for the first time and to be engaged in talking about the planning,” Ms. Moore said.

PRO BONO WORK

Now that the exam is over, Ms. Moore hopes to work more closely with her FPA chapter's pro bono committee and participate in volunteer work. “I have a co-worker who's doing Prepare and Prosper,” which is tax preparation for low-income people,” she said. “I'm excited to get involved in those things.” Ms. Moore suggests that new advisers get comfortable with asking questions and taking notes. “It helps to be able to absorb everything going on around you and to take every opportunity to ask questions about what's going on with clients,” she said. “You're never going to know everything, and you're never going to know as much as you think you should. If you don't understand something, just ask.”