I work in a retail brokerage house and work with high net worth clients on service and trading needs with a slight sales aspect in the sense of finding creative ways to get clients to deepen the relationship with their current advisor or if they don’t already have one, getting them open to speaking with one on their planning needs. This was not the career choice I had in mind, but due to financial constraints in school I wasn’t able to take advantage of the networking opportunities and this was the only opportunity I was able to land.
I absolutely don’t like talking with retail clients on the phone and asking “open ended questions about their strategy or planning needs”. It’s just not my thing.
I’ve decided to take on the CFA to increase my knowledge and confidence as well as other things outside, such as networking, personal portfolio management, etc to try to make myself a good candidate to transfer to ER a year or two down the road. If I am unsuccessful, I may seek MSF or MBA for the university networking opportunities, but I’m hoping it doesn’t go that far.
I’ve just been offered and opportunity to do something with this brokerage house that I would enjoy much more - being in more of a management role for reps on the phone, answering calls on how to handle processes, place difficult trades, etc. Essentially, it will require getting a Series 9/10, but theres no rush so theres no study conflict.
I’m afraid of deepening myself into more of an “operational” role that will damage me long term. At least now I can make the case I work with high net worth clients on their portfolios, to a certain extent.
My level of happiness in this role where i no longer talk to clients would increase substantially but I don’t want to do any more damage to my path, as not getting a great opportunity right out of undergrad has already hurt.
but what about the problem of building a background of merely retail brokerage/operations/principal/etc?..does it dig me deeper, have no effect, or add diversity to the background?
Damn, Im the exact opposite as you, I love sales and talking to people on the phone. I’d kill myself in an operations role, hahah.
Anyway I think your concerns about being pigeoned holed in ops is legitimate, I am not sure that that would count as relevant experience but I know that your current role would. Try not to worry about pass mistakes in undergrad there is nothing you can do about it. If i were you I would take the ops job, AFTER, talking to people you know personally who have made the same move to see what their perspective is. If you hate what you are doing now, you probably shouldn’t do it because it will only get worse and you will eventually burn out doing somehting you hate, trust me.
As for the retail space…its BIG and potentially very lucrative, alot of people idealize BB’s and working with institutional money but there is ALOT of retail wealth out there that needs to be managed and the competition you are facing is not as daunting. As for making the switch…I don’t know, it may be a negative for the future but it sounds like your options are pretty limited right now so you need to be cognizant of that before you look too far into the future.
ive been analyzing this for 24 hours pretty much non-stop now, and i think im going to suck it up in my current position…the position im in deals with some high net worth individuals, but i know there is an opening in 1 month to hire for a role that deals with very high net worth individuals doing pretty much the same thing, but double the bonus…i will hate that role too, but the transferables from dealing with very high value people ($5-$10M accounts on average) i think will be more beneficial long-term…after that there is a position that is very interesting that i would enjoy, but im hoping to not be around to apply for it…the longer im in the retail environment the harder it is going to be for me to switch…CFA level 1 is my focus for now…again, thanks for the input