One of the  goals for every aspiring financial planner should be to obtain the CFP® certification. Obtaining this designation is rewarding yet challenging and requires 3 parts, the education, the exam, and the experience. You can find out more about the education component here, and we have provided resources on when to take the exam, and tips for passing the CFP® exam to assist in your quest. The third part, the experience requirement, can oftentimes be the most difficult of them all.  Especially for career changers who may not be able to leave their full time job yet. 

You can start accumulating hours for the experience requirement 10 years before taking the exam, and up to five years after. There are two options for how to accumulate those hours. The Standard Pathway and the Apprenticeship Pathway. The Standard Pathway is 6,000 hours of total experience, and the Apprenticeship option is the 4,000 hours. 

A traditional full-time job at 40 hours a week would give you the 6,000 experience hours needed in three years. In that position you will be able to accumulate hours through tasks like meeting with clients, working on financial plans, and being a part of the financial planning process. Working in a paraplanner or associate planner role is not the only option as you can also get experience hours by teaching or through internships 

• Teaching: Teaching financial planning courses at an academic institution fulfills the requirements for experience.
• Internships: For students, starting to gain experience for the certification through internships while completing the education is a way to be set up for a position after graduation, and start accumulating hours to earn the certification earlier. 
• Complete the Financial Planning Association Residency Program which is a week long intensive program that provides three months of experience. You can take this program up to twice for a total of six months of experience. 
• Complete an externship like the Amplified Planning Externship to get about a month of experience.
• Volunteer for VITA
• Observe and help with Free Financial Planning Days your FPA or NAPFA chapter may be hosting. 

The apprenticeship pathway was created to more heavily weight the experience of the aspiring planners that have more financial planning-centric experience versus only back office/admin. work so it has a few more requirements. . The requirement is to spend those hours in all seven phases of the financial planning process and those 4,000 hours need to be done working with clients under the supervision of a CFP® professional.

Once you have chosen your pathway and have started to accumulate experience,  you will need to report your experience to the CFP Board. Experience gained can be reported at any time using your CFP board account. Simply add your experience and once that experience is verified, you are well on your way to achieving CFP Certification. 

The experience requirements can be daunting, but the experience is necessary for you to achieve the foundation from which to continue building your career upon. We are pulling for you! Good luck!  Let us know if you have any questions. You can submit to candidate@newplannerrecruiting.com