To the Financial Advisors/Planners out there….

Hi All,

A little bit of a background on me…I have always had an interest in the financial services and for the last 18 months worked with a tier 2 insurance product, but it wasn't where I wanted to be.

Two weeks ago I took a job with one of the big 4 in a call centre for a customer service position, and even though it was a step down, I figured getting my foot in the door with a bank would be good for opportunities in the future. The job I took was on a 6 month secondment basis so I was going to reassess things at the end of my six months and go from there. However, as always, nothing seems to go according to plan and on wednesday my campaign/I was made redundant and as of 20th August I will be out of a job which will be pushing my plans ahead by about 5 months.

I am currently in the process of studying the Diploma of Financial Services which is due to be completed by early November and I am already RG146 qualified.

I've been on all the job sites looking for a job that would put me on the path towards my future career goals but everything seems to require at least 1-2 years previous experience which I do not have. I was originally thinking of something along the lines of a traineeship as a paraplanner or even an assistant position but every company wants someone with experience which is perfectly understandable from a company's point of view but doesn't really help me out much!

So this brings me to my question. How do you get started out in the industry? Is it more of a case of who you know rather than what you know or willingness to work and learn or just luck to find an employer willing to employ someone with limited to no experience? Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting to walk into a financial planning/paraplanner role straight away (nor do I want to) but I do want to get started out in the industry. Is there more courses that I could/should be doing? Or am I just missing some important fact altogether?

Thanks in advance (and for reading this far)!