Tapping into the accountant talent pool

Speaking with ifa, Jodie Lane, an accountant of 20 years who recently began her professional year in financial advice, said she is hoping to encourage more accountants to consider a career in advice but despite working in the financial services sector, many of them don’t understand what advisers do.

While attracting talent to the advice profession has been an ongoing issue in recent years, Lane said part of this stems from advice having a “real PR problem”, leaving many unaware that it is a career option, despite efforts from the professional bodies to rectify this.

Highlighting the disconnect between the advice profession and potential talent, she explained that prior to personally working with a financial adviser in 2020, she didn’t understand what a financial adviser did beyond budgeting, adding that many of her colleagues have shared this confusion.

“I told a bunch of my colleagues that I had been to see an adviser, and I loved the experience, and pretty much universally got the feedback of, ‘Oh geez, but why do you even need that? You do budgeting at work, you don’t need that’,” Lane said.

“I said, ‘No, here’s what the experience was like; it was governed by who I am as a person and my goals, and this is what we did’.

“That’s amazing, and they get to do that every day. No one knew, right? So my longer-term plan is to tap into all of those accountants who are great with numbers and are people-focused and show them that there’s another way.”

Lane noted that the disconnect also permeates the younger talent pool, as the roadmap to accounting is clear and well-worn while the one leading to advice remains relatively unnoticed at a university level.

“Having been through the accounting machine where it is just such an established thing, it seems a real shame to be missing all of those keen young people who just don’t know that this is an option,” she said.

“Even at universities, not every uni offers financial planning, so it’s just not as visible. I’m certainly keen to do my part to change that. I’ve been educating my kids on what it’s like, and they’re really interested in it and didn’t know what it was.

“I’m hoping that with enough of us, we can start a bit of a groundswell to just have more visibility and show people that there’s a really fulfilling, people-focused career that is a great fit if you’re values-driven and want to help people.”

After working as an accountant for more than two decades, Lane decided to take on a career in financial advice, becoming an associate and starting her professional year (PY) at Rise Financial in February 2024.

“I find great fulfilment in doing this job and that just trying to get more narrative around it, to get more of the people who would like that to do it, that’s really appealing as well,” she said.

Speaking on her experience transferring knowledge and skills from accounting over to advising, Lane said her experience as an accountant has helped her grasp some advice concepts faster, while other aspects have her starting from scratch.

“There’s a bit of crossover in the accounting space, although I’ve been primarily working with the government so, of course, the content is different but a lot of the concepts are the same, and tax is tax, so that stuff is still really relevant,” Lane said.

“A lot of the actual mechanics of preparing advice for clients is, of course, very different. So, I have definitely had a learning curve. I’m still on a learning curve, but I’m really relishing that opportunity.

“I guess having worked in and around corporate offices for a long time, having that experience of having to be able to adapt to various software packages and business processes and that sort of thing has also meant that I’ve been able to pick things up quickly, which is good because … it can sometimes feel a bit daunting starting day one.”

Lane added: “I’m sure there’s no easy fix, but all of these different initiatives hopefully will add up to lead to some change.”