Return of the techies: technical skills targeted

Compliance experts are out. Technical services managers, practice managers and anyone with good communications skills are in. That is the general consensus among the financial services recruitment specialists when they were asked by Money Management what they thought were this year’s most sought after roles in the financial planning industry.

“We noticed a huge demand for compliance people about one to two years ago in anticipation of Financial Services Reform. But I think that has flattened out now,” Laughlin Associates managing director Sally Laughlin says.

“Now practices are going through another phase, where they are trying to demonstrate their value proposition to the market. Consumers are asking ‘what’s your value add?’ Having really substantial technical support, quality paraplanning services and good research reports means advisers have a better chance of answering that question convincingly.”

Yes, technical services positions have always been important, but Laughlin says demand for compliance experts last year put preferences for tech savvy employees on hold. Now that FSR has blown over, these skills are back to the fore.

And if good technical services people stand a good chance of scoring a highly paid job, tech services people with good communications skill are pretty much a sure thing.

Laughlin says in the past several years there has been an increased blurring between the back and front offices as advisers seek more accountability from their tech services back-up people and as clients demand to meet the person that’s actually managing their funds. She says the same rule applies for what she says are a new breed of ‘talking’ business development managers.

“You can’t be a back-office boffin anymore. You’ve got to have good relationship building skills, good presentation skills and most of all you must be able to communicate complex financial terms clearly and articulately.”

If they aren’t hiring these people, dealer groups are trying to bolster their training, which is good news for practice managers.

Financial Recruitment Group executive director Peter Dawson agrees with Laughlin that analysts and tech services people are in demand after noticing some growth in these areas in the past year.

“Although there has been a small amount of growth in these positions the increase hasn’t exactly been significant. But the demand for strong technical skills is always evident,” Dawson says.

Practice managers who have experience in coaching and mentoring planners are always hotly pursued, according to Dawson.

“Those practice managers with recruitment skills are particularly sought after as dealer groups seek to recruit individual planners and SME practices.”

But Dawson says the ‘in demand’ people for 2004 are planners with their own mobile client base.

“Everybody’s after them. The key element here is that they have developed their own practice and they have their own client base and they have developed their own strategic centres of influence.”

He says a number of large dealer groups are pinpointing exactly these planners.

“Everybody’s trying to recruit these people because they are business generators and they’re going to impact on the bottom line.”

But planners who tow around a bunch of clients are not impressing everyone, according to Strategic Consulting and Training managing director Jim Stackpool, who specialises in recruitment and practice management for planning firms that offer a more holistic advice model.

Rather than checking to see how many existing clients a planner has, he believes dealer groups will be more interested in a planner’s client management skills. These skills will even take precedence over technical ability.

“In the wealth management area the roles most sought after are advisers without any baggage and that’s generally a younger adviser who hasn’t been strictly brought up on their technical skills.

“The guys we talk to aren’t after the ‘no one’s better at DIY stuff than me’ type of adviser with only one area of technical expertise. They want people with more of a relationship building ability — with both the client and with the team.”

Archer Consulting senior consultant Dugald Braithwaite agrees.

“There are now clear career paths for people not wanting to pursue a ‘sales’ career in the industry, these people are highly respected and well remunerated.”

But like Laughlin, Braithwaite also believes the flurry of activity in the funds management sector with rapid establishment of new funds has seen huge demand for experienced technical services managers and analysts.

“On the distribution side this has resulted in very high demand for experienced business development managers with extensive market knowledge, professional networks and adviser relationships.”

Also highly regarded by planning practices at present, according to Stackpool, are advisers with accountancy skills, especially chartered practising accountants.

“Traditional financial planning firms are seeking someone who can come in and assist with the client relationship but in areas such as tax, cash flow and structure. But these must be accountants who want to come in and work as part of the team and not on their own hourly rate.”

Stackpool says this year has also seen the birth of a new role. The chief client officer or CCO oversees the different levels of advice a client might be receiving from a number of different advisers, like a tax specialist or a superannuation specialist, and pulls them all together to make sure the advisers’ promises are actually getting delivered.

Like a chief executive or chief investment officer, CCOs don’t often work with clients and they need good project management skills.

“They need to understand how to deliver projects and that each significant client is almost like a project in itself.”

Another relatively new role to emerge or at least increase in popularity this year has been that of the platform provider/dealer group ‘go-between’.

With increased competition in the platform space, Braithwaite says the concept of ‘transition teams’ has become well ingrained in the industry.

Laughlin agrees, saying that as dealer groups begin to use more platforms, the need for key account roles has increased.

“In the past you might have had one or two key account people within an organisation. Now you’re more likely to have three or four,” she says.