got offer after level III pass

I am currently in a very low paying job and it is not wealth management related, corporate banking monkey work, I analyze a company for the commite and they end up recommending or not without even reading the analysis. I would call it a fromality to please the central bank since you cant tell them we lend based on instinct. The title looks okay, corporate credit analyst, but not much to learn when noone reads your reports and gives you feedback.

For months I could not get any recruiter to talk to me. The day after passing CFA exam I posted my CV and I got a contact from a CEO of a small investement consulting/sales firm.

The job offer is all commision based. Do many people out there work like this without any sallary? It is a noname company, but I also work for a no name bank, so not much would be lost if i switch except for maybe a bank is still more reputable than a company even if it is a no name bank, mostly I guess because most people have an idea about what banks do.

Just looking for some advice. Any comments will be helpful in the decision making process.

^

The position is “wealth manager”. Subordinates arrange client meetings for me and I need to sell products to the clients, its not clear to me how much of the job will be advising the clients and how much of it will be selling them whatever I can get them to but to make profit (not very pro CFA)

This sounds fishy — unless you are confident that you can perform, then it is okay. Talk to the guy in depth about how much you will be paid and the frequency. I had a position similar to this in a different industry last year. I was not willing to drop everything to gamble on a zero base salary. I talked to the head of the company about an estimated salary for x and y results; he said it would be between $90k and $300k depending on my motivation and work ethic. Long story short — the economy sucks, he was getting effed (therefore I got effed) and I only stuck around for 2 months and then left. Keep in mind that I setup this position outside of work hours and only had to go into the office 1-2 times a week at night for meetings. Best thing for you to do is have a backup if this position blows up - try to keep your current position and ease into the new position, leaving one foot in a solid money making oppty even if the pay does suck.

Purely commission-based is uncommon to me. I would second Analti_Calte_Equity’s advice.

Some other day I’ll tell you about the time a dude conned me and 20+ other Goldman / Merrill types into thinking he was a private equity firm owner looking for people and ‘hired’ us all when he was a little more than a bum.

Your fancy title of “wealth manager” sounds like a cover for what you are basically doing: being a salesman.

The reason they call you a wealth manager is because you will look/sound much more distinguished when talking to clients. I would bet clients have no idea you are 100% commission, even though it may be buried somewhere in many pages of fine print. They hope clients don’t catch the conflict of interest, because you have incentive to sell them anything to make money.

What is further sketchy, is the fact that your pay is 100% commission, which means the company isn’t making much of an investment in you, and they don’t have much to lose. You only win, if the company wins first.

It’s basically a salesman role. If you want to do that, it may not be so bad.

It does sound a bit fishy, more like a chop shop where they hire a bunch of people to make sales calls and toss out anyone that doesn’t have a good rolodex or willingness-to-sell-their-grandmother a bronze plated turd (claiming it’s real gold).

I would do horribly at a place like that, though if you are the type that can sell ice to eskimos, it might be profitable for you.

If you are able to sell, that is one of the skills that is always in demand, so I wouldn’t necessarily say don’t do it, but be sure you know who you are and whether you’re into that sort of thing before jumping, or at least have a good safety net (other job, family, savings, etc.) if you do.

Two reasons it is fishy:

  1. 100% commission based

  2. They came to you, not you went for them