Blog

Throughout the years we have interviewed candidates who have wide ranging experience levels, and come from a variety of backgrounds. And we’ve seen first-hand how a wide breadth of candidates can make it challenging to decide which one to actually hire for your firm. Having your candidate(s) go through a structured screening process with interviews, exercises, and assessments is a great place to start understanding who they are, how they operate, and where they might be the best fit within ...

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Here at New Planner Recruiting, we recently celebrated our 10-year anniversary, and wanted to take a moment and thank you for your continued support over the years. We value the relationship we have with our clients, who have been an integral part of our success, have truly enjoyed serving you, and really appreciate the trust and confidence you have placed in us to assist you in sourcing, screening, and integrating the top talent you need to stay ahead. When Michael and I had the initial ...

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Am I Average? Ways to Stand Out as a Financial Planning Candidate.   While finding your dream firm and position is important, you ultimately must stand out to be recognized among the dozens of applicants. Although everyone brings a specific skill set and perspective to a role, resumes and cover letters often blend together for hiring managers. As an applicant, you need to differentiate yourself and stand out from the other applicants. STUDENTS Most financial planning students ...

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The lack of sufficient talent currently entering the financial planning profession is undeniable. This talent shortage can cause immense frustration among firms attempting to build a solid pipeline of qualified candidates to select from when they need to add a financial planner to their organization. Due to these challenges, paired with increased efficiency and effectiveness of technology, some firms are rethinking their hiring strategy entirely by embracing remote/virtual hires versus ...

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For growing firms, the onset of a new year brings a new slate of goals to work towards, and challenges to overcome for you and your team. The beginning of the year is also a great time to promote people on your team who are performing exceptionally, so they can start the year off in the right position and mindset. This month, we will look at how to identify candidates for promotion. Here are three signs to look for: They are already taking it to the next level. This one is ...

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Hiring and on-boarding new team members is a great way to increase the number of services you can offer and the number of clients you can service, but it can also be a lot of work and a challenging endeavor for those who don’t hire frequently. This month we interviewed Eric Sontag, COO of Sontag Advisory, who has a team of 45 staff members and over $5 billion in AUM. We chatted with Eric to discuss how he managed hiring what is now almost 22% of the firm’s workforce in just over a year, what ...

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In August, we reviewed some strategies for trying to retain an employee who you don’t want to leave.  This month we review some things you can do to get an employee to leave if you don’t want to terminate them directly. Sometimes firm owners don’t terminate under-performing team members when they need to because of the human nature to avoid conflict, hassles of HR process and red tape, and afraid of potential legal action/discrimination accusations that may be taken. In addition to these, it can ...

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Last month, we reviewed possible warning signs that your employees might be looking to leave. In this month’s article, we offer some suggestions and ideas for overcoming common reasons employees cite as their reason for leaving (which varies depending on whether they’re leaving the profession, or just leaving for another firm), in an effort to try and retain them. Assuming, of course, that you do not want them to leave in the first place! How To Stop An Employee From Leaving The ...

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Unexpectedly losing someone in your organization is an unfortunate way to quash your business’s momentum and can become especially challenging during the usually slower summer months. Team members who have considered leaving you in the past and put their career prospects on hold to take vacations with their families, are going to start having a lot more time to consider any tempting offers that come their way heading into the fall, as competing firms start planning out their human capital needs ...

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Years ago, when I started in this profession I remember firms doing some oddball things. One of them was hire someone after a brief meet and greet with very minimal interviewing and vetting.  This worked out for a few but was far from a best practice.   Mainly because there was scant time spent around assessing whether the candidate could perform the functions of the job or even knew what the job functions really were! Which is why we advocate for a strong position description and thorough ...

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Many readers of this newsletter contact me directly with questions, comments, thoughts, etc. And while the response we usually provide is specific to the situation sometimes it might be generic enough to be useful to others. This month we are going to address three frequently asked questions. So here you are, three for the price of one! What is the best way to interview candidates – Time kills the hiring process and the longer the process takes the chances of a successful hire diminish. In an ...

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