Getting young blood into Financial Planning: Q&A with Alisdair Barr

When Alisdair Barr was a 26-year-old paraplanner, someone took a chance on him and it paid off. Following a successful executive career, Alisdair now helps other businesses to take a chance on the next generation of up and coming professionals, through his mentorship program, Grad Mentor. He speaks with Industry Moves about how the program works, the importance of engaging young people, and the advice that landed him where he is today.

ALISDAIR BARR

When Alisdair Barr was a 26-year-old paraplanner, someone took a chance on him and it paid off. Following a successful executive career, Alisdair now helps other businesses to take a chance on the next generation of up and coming professionals, through his mentorship program, Grad Mentor. He speaks with Industry Moves about how the program works, the importance of engaging young people, and the advice that landed him where he is today.

Grad mentor is quite different to a recruitment agency, how did the idea come about?

We're specifically not a recruitment agency. We're in resourcing. I've worked in wealth management for a long time and I have had a really fun career. I know the impact that the industry has and that you can make a good living out of it. But, like most people in this industry, I kind of fell into it. When I left my banking job I had a lot of people asking me "how do you help your business clients find good people?" So I went out to universities and asked if I could work with them and help their students get paid work experiences and ultimately a job. We built Grad Mentor based on what my clients asked me for and that was good, talented, young people who were passionate about entering the profession.

Your program brings together the 'top graduates' from Australian universities. What qualities are you looking for in a graduate other than their academic abilities?

Academic abilities are important but not what we screen for. We look specifically for a work ethic - that they're not just treating the job like a 9-5 gig. They need to have attention to detail and they need to want to build themselves a career in and around this profession. They might not end up being a financial planner or accountant, they might end up being an office manager or a paraplanner, but those are the three main things that we're looking for. If the phone rings they need to be able to pick it up and not think, "That's not my job."

They must have a degree but we also look to see if they've always had a job, and if they've failed anything at university, that it's only happened once. If they've worked in a family business we think that's gold because it's all hands on deck and there's no hierarchy. People from the country are very, very good. I ask country kids, "Do you trust the city folk as much as you trust the country folk?" And they say, "no" and I think that's because you can't get away with anything in a country town but in the city you can hide from things.

You vet your graduates beforehand; do you also vet the companies that can attend the events that you hold and be a part of the mentorship program?

New clients usually come and see our events first, which they pay to be a part of, and that tends to wash away those that we don't want to partner with. Businesses that are serious about growing with good people will see value in our program.

Therefore, we usually only get fairly serious businesses coming along. Also, a lot of our business comes through referrals from other clients. If there are businesses that resonate with the content that we put out, then they tend to come on board as clients, so that's a type of vetting process for us. We also have a 12-day trial period for graduates to try out the businesses and for businesses to try out the graduates, so that helps too. There are some businesses that we wouldn't put people in.

With an ageing Australian population and an ageing sector working within the financial services industry, what can firms be doing to better engage this cohort of young, up and coming professionals?

We're constantly talking about making advice more accessible for people and that's great, it needs to happen but we need to turn this agenda on ourselves as a profession. We need to talk about this being a great place to work. We can make good money, have a good career, enjoy our role and make a significant impact. Millennials want to do something that has a positive impact and we know that this profession does that. They want to be able to work flexibly and we know that technology and robo-advice allows for this. These are the things that we should be talking about.

What does the 12-day mentorship program entail?

It's about getting to spend some time together in a real working environment. Most people, whether it's the business or the graduate, can tell within the first few days if the culture fits with them. I think that through all of our psychometric testing, behavioural interviewing and coaching as well as the speed networking events and us knowing our clients so well, that the match will probably work well. Those first 12 days give confidence to a small/medium business that they're not up for a big expense. It's a casual employee and if it doesn't end up working out, they haven't got to go through the HR process. Everyone is on the same page and at the end of 12 days they can all make a decision.

How many people are hired for full-time roles after going through this process?

The percentage of successful placements is pretty high. Because we've gone through such a rigorous process with all of our testing, everything tends to work out pretty well by the final stages. I'd say about 95% of graduates get a job at the end of the 12-day period. If the graduate ends up not enjoying it after their trial period, they're still walking away with 100 hours of relevant paid work experience for their CV.

Is there a follow-up/support network in place for students who are successfully placed into an organisation?

We stay in contact with them and we also create an alumni community. We run an event called Finance Friday, which is every second month in Sydney. All of these young people working in the industry will come into the CBD and they'll work in buildings right next to each other for the next ten years and they can cross paths without ever meeting each other. That's the danger of a small financial services business, it can be quite lonely. The purpose of the alumni group is to remind them that they're part of a bigger community.

It's purposefully an un-structured event because we don't want it to feel like a chore, we just want people to come along and meet the people who are in the same position as they are.

Since starting the program in 2013, have you noticed an increase/decrease in the amount of young people that are interesting in joining the financial services industry?

I couldn't tell you if there have been any big changes. The universities are saying that their enrolments are going up, but it's really hard to see that because a lot of university content is going online now and there are less people in the class.

We need to have people coming out of high school, having a conversation with their families about what they're going to study and we need to have Financial Planning on the table for discussion. That's the key purpose of what we're trying to do, we're trying to facilitate that conversation and if that conversation happens, then we are not needed. Are people hopping over themselves saying: "We're here, we want to be Financial Planners!" - not really, but we're helping to get the conversation going.

What would you say the percentage is for male to female graduates?

There was a moment in our first few years when it was 50/50. 90% of the females that come through our program get placed. Do we have more girls jumping to be a part of the industry? No, but there are certain pockets that attract more women. We run our program in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane and in Sydney we get lots of females and we get them out of certain universities from 'alpha-male' style degrees. For example, we have a lot of strong females coming out of Macquarie University's Applied Finance degree. Those women realise that you can use finance for good and not evil and they see how finance can positively impact people, they don't want to be like Wolf of Wall Street.

Right now, we don't get as many females (maybe 35% - 40%) applying to be part of the Grad Mentor program which I think is reflective of the population in those degrees and their employability. When they do apply, they get snapped up very quickly - which is a really positive thing! Women should know that there are jobs in this field for them, people want to employ females and that's fantastic.

What drew you to be involved in this line of work?

I understand the impact that this profession has and I believe it's a great place for young people to get a grasp on a career. I was with one of our client's last night and a colleague of mine asked the client about a graduate that we had put into their business and she said that particular graduate told her that I was the only person that had ever given them a chance.

I hear that story and I love it. Even for those students that we can't find a job for - which does happen at times - sometimes they'll e-mail us in the future and say: "I just got a job here and you really helped me with my confidence." I save all of those e-mails because on a hard day they remind me of our purpose.

When you first entered the industry, was there someone that acted as a mentor for you?

I grew up in Perth and my second job in Sydney was Paraplanning at Commonwealth Bank. I was pulled out of there by a general manager at the bank to look at financial planning within the retail banking network. After six months he told all of his area managers, who were experienced bankers running the financial planning business, that he was going to take that off them and give it to me. I was 26 years old. He gave them the news via tele-conference and someone said to him, "You're making a huge mistake giving that to Alisdair." His response was: "Somebody gave me a chance in my career and I'm going to give Alisdair a chance." That was a very important point for me. I had to make it work then! And I did.

There's also another boss that was very inspirational to me. He told me that he was leaving and I asked him if I should apply for his job. He said to me, "When you're 94 and sitting on a park bench looking back at your life, would there be anything that you'd be angry about not having done?" I said, yes. So he said, "Well go and do that now, don't apply for this job." So I quit my job.

What would your key piece of advice be for young people entering the industry?

Get a job. Get your feet under the desk and work it out. Your career will take on so many different directions. Opportunities that are not taken are lost forever. If you wait around for the perfect job, you'll wait around too long. The art is in the start. In every job that you do, you need to exceed everyone's expectations and your career will be fine.

What's the best piece of advice that you have received?

Focus. Do a few things extraordinarily not a lot of things ordinarily.