FAAA targets career changers to bolster adviser pipeline

The Financial Advice Association of Australia (FAAA) wants professionals from diverse industries to consider careers in financial advice, launching the “Better Off” awareness campaign to attract career changers.

The new initiative, the FAAA said, aims to appeal to people seeking new career paths by “highlighting how they could be better off pursuing a career in financial advice”.

According to the association, the campaign will primarily focus on social media to reach potential career changers, informing the target audience about the training requirements to become a financial adviser and how they can transition careers.

"We believe many people are at a point in their careers where they want to make a real difference, and the financial advice profession offers that opportunity,” FAAA chief executive Sarah Abood said.

“Professional financial advice changes lives for the better, by helping Australians to build a more secure future, enjoy a higher quality of life, and experience less financial stress.

“This campaign encourages people from all walks of life to consider financial advice as an attractive career — one that offers the opportunity to build lasting client relationships and have a positive impact on people’s financial futures, while enjoying career growth, autonomy and strong demand for their services.”

She added that the campaign is designed to help address the shortage of advisers and ensure there is a pipeline of talent into the sector that can meet the demand for financial advice among Australians.

"By attracting career changers, we’re bringing to the profession people who already have life experience as well as professional skills gained in other areas. Many existing financial advisers are career changers and know the benefits that those extra skills and experience can bring to their practice,” Abood said.

“With an even higher number of Australians expected to enter retirement in coming years, demand for financial advisers continues to grow, as does an already significant demand/supply imbalance in financial advice. This campaign seeks to not only help reduce the adviser shortage but also create a more diverse, skilled workforce.

“We’re hoping our campaign will encourage a broad range of Australians to consider changing their career to one that changes lives for the better.”

Kicking off the campaign at the start of the year is the ideal way to target career changes, according to Zeina Khodr, managing director of Paper + Spark, which is the creative agency for the campaign.

“Through a digital campaign across Meta, LinkedIn, Google, and Nine Display, we’re reaching a targeted audience while providing valuable content that guides career changers on their path to becoming licensed financial advisers — opening the door to a fulfilling new career in the wealth management industry," Khodr said.

The new push is in line with the FAAA’s strategic plan, which it unveiled in November last year.

The second pillar of the plan centres on growing the profession, with FAAA chair David Sharpe noting that with the number of advisers continuing to fall, it “becomes more difficult to service the growing advice demands of Australians”.

“We are working on promoting entry and career pathways to new and returning financial advisers, including promoting the profession as a career-change option and to make Australia an attractive option for skilled migration,” he said.

“We are already working to build the pipeline for financial advice in education and the professional year.”

Abood had also signalled mid-year that an advertising campaign to specifically promote financial planning as a great career was in the works and would target both students and potential career changers.

“We want to really get more people considering this career, get more students coming through these degrees, get the front of that pipeline up again,” she said.

“We haven’t been in market, I think forever, talking about why you should consider financial planning as a career. We’ve often relied on the children of existing planners, clients and so on, but we believe the time has come to really be more overt and that campaign will run in next financial year.”