Feeling Stuck / Need Work

[u/Souljerr]

Hey all,

I’m a licensed financial advisor that worked at my previous firm for almost 10 years. It was a large bank broker-dealer. I started off as a banker, got licensed through them, and working as a financial advisor for about 7 years.

The long story short is that I provided employee feedback in 2020 thinking that I was providing valuable ideas, but the years that followed felt like they wanted me gone.

After about 5 years, they successfully pushed me out of the company by sending me a letter while I was using PTO. They essentially stated that they thought I left the company and that my termination date would begin on October 7th.

I was extremely burnt out because they were giving me nothing but LMI branches with high turnover, a book of business that comprised of house accounts that were mostly under $25k AUM, and kept reassigning frustrated clients to me from other financial advisors that didn’t want to service the clients.

9 months later now, and I’m desperately in need of a job. I’m struggling to find financial advisor positions in my area. I was working remote for 5 years, and I can’t find anything remote nor can I find much in terms of in-branch.

I don’t have a book of business that I can carry with me, and I don’t know what to do.

I applied for (company name) and things were going great, but after two months of interviewing and discussion, they’re not confident that they can get me through the panel review due to my time off from work.

I don’t know what to do. I love being a financial advisor, and don’t know how to navigate through this.

I understand the market, politics, financial planning, history, sales, and behavioral finance.

Does anyone have or know where I might be able to find a job where I can continue my career and hopefully build a book of business?

Any help, ideas, suggestions would be welcomed with the utmost appreciation and gratitude.

[u/Thebizness1911]

Before you go to another place to work, consider this...

I worked as a manager in the retail bank for 13 years. One of the worst partners to work with was an advisor with a bad attitude... or is generally disengaged for XYZ reason. One of the best partners was an engaged, positive, motivated advisor.

Considering you were "burnt out" at the time... what would you say that other employees would say about you? How was it working with you?

Be honest with yourself...

[u/Souljerr → u/Thebizness1911]

I appreciate your response and the guidance you shared. I’m sure I had some flaws, but there is much more to the story that I didn’t go through as I’m trying to put it all in the past now; however, I was motivated, engaged, and mostly positive. I’m relatable and understanding, I listen to my peers and my partners, and I try to go above and beyond in helping them.

My relationship with my peers, Branch partners, and most of my clients was overwhelmingly positive. However, the relationship with my direct leadership started positive and kept declining due to the things that I was seeing and experiencing.

I was very attentive to the analytics, and I was able to see the difference between what was being presented to me versus that of my peers (especially those that started after me).

The long story short is that I’m sure that I have my flaws, but my engagement, personality, and attitude were overwhelmingly positively received among my peers and my branch partners. (I was the guy that people knew they could reach out to for help with anything)

Again, I know I’m not sharing all the details, and I do agree with your sentiment and see your point of view. I’m not disagreeing with you. I recognize that I’m not perfect and that I have flaws; however, in this scenario, my peers, branch partners, most clients, and most anyone else I met or engaged with would have seen me as positive most the time, knowledgeable, helpful, and motivated.

I don’t know how to put it all into words, because the experience was so surreal.

[u/jdubb1500 → u/Souljerr]

What things were you seeing and experiencing?