Recruiting high quality advisors is a top of mind concern of every client we work with. And I can see why. In an industry projected to grow by 30% where there are more advisors over the age of 70 than under the age of 30, you don’t have to be an economist to figure out that we’re facing a major supply shortage. Unfortunately, sourcing quality candidates is time consuming, expensive, and interviewing can feel like a revolving door until the right candidate finds her way in. In order to hire the additional 200,000 advisors the industry needs by 2022, managers and recruiters need workflow solutions that offer increased efficiencies and cost savings.
Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and an abundance of person-level data offer managers unparalleled opportunities to both identify and vet candidates with amazing accuracy, scale, and speed. We already see this in the world of online music with services like Spotify or Pandora. They know exactly what song I want to hear next by using algorithms to identify the characteristics and commonalities of all the music I’ve been listening to. In essence, they’ve developed a genome of the type of music I enjoy. Using a similar methodology, we can create an advisor genome to spot the traits of top-performing advisors and apply those learnings to a database of potential candidates. And thanks to the vast, digital networks that we each posses, finding warm introductions within your own network or that of your team has never been easier.
After a promising candidate has been identified, managers can leverage innovative vetting solutions to help paint a 360 view of the individual. Performing an analysis of a candidate's digital network provides managers with a view into the candidate’s likely success or failure. What markets are they best suited to serve? How expansive is their reach, are they influential? Will they have enough prospects to pursue? What states should they be licensed to sell in? What is the makeup of the average prospect in their world? All of these questions can now be answered almost instantaneously, saving managers (and advisors) valuable time and resources.
The result is a digital workflow solution for teams and financial services firms to grow revenue, reduce turnover and develop talent. These solutions help managers make a more informed, data-driven hiring decision and provide information on advisor market development activity that can be used for coaching and training. In addition, much of the manual work associated with market development and the high-volume, fragmented, and time-consuming process of early stage (pre-CRM) prospecting activity is automated, leaving the manager happy and the advisor productive.
With the demand for hiring new advisors at an all time high, managers must turn to technologies that do the “busywork” for them so they can focus their time and attention on the things that really matter, like grooming the next generation of advisors.