💡 Expert Insights: Who takes over when your senior people retire?

🙋🏼‍♂️ Ask a Recruiter: Should I wait for my manager to retire?

📌 New Career Opportunities

⭐ Associate Spotlight: Greg McDowell

🔗 Connect With Your Recruiter

About 35% of financial advisors expect to retire within the next 10 years. They manage roughly 40% of industry assets, and more than a quarter of them aren't sure who will take over.

This is one of the most common concerns that hiring managers bring to our team. Once a senior seat opens, few qualified people apply, and most who do would need time to learn the role. Firms that didn't plan ahead don't have that time.

Firms that hire well through a retirement tend to do three things.

Start with two numbers: How many people will retire in the next five to 10 years, and how much turnover should you expect on top of that?

Many hiring managers start a search expecting it to go quickly. A headcount plan gives them time to prepare for a thin market.

A community bank in a small market asked FRI for a trust officer. During intake, the team found the job was mostly client relationships.

Relationship managers were scarce there, so the team looked at RIAs, where the client skills matched. The bank hired from an RIA.

One question widens a search like this: If we find someone who can do most of the job, which parts can you train? Estate planning attorneys moving into trust roles are a common example.

A replacement with the same 20 years in the seat may not exist in your market. Someone with about 10 years left can do the job and bring up the people who will eventually take it over.

That only works if those people stay. Pay them competitively, show them a clear path, and build a culture worth staying in.

When an advisor retires, someone has to take over their clients, or the clients end up with a call center. We’re seeing firms pay $150,000 for relationship managers whose job is to keep existing clients. They don't have to bring a book with them.

If you have strong client skills in a related field, more firms are hiring for what you already do well. A recruiter can tell you which of your skills will count.

Planning for a retirement or your own next move? Reach out to one of our team members at the bottom of this newsletter.

Q: My manager plans to retire in a few years. Should I stay and wait to be promoted into the role?

Our take: Maybe, but don't assume. When a senior person retires, many firms bring in someone experienced from outside. Some internal employees who want the job won't get it.

Ask your manager directly, and ask now. Find out whether the firm sees you as the successor, what you'd need to get there, and on what timeline. A clear answer with a plan behind it is a good sign. A vague answer, or a firm that needs you to keep doing exactly what you do today, tells you something too.

A recruiter can tell you what the role pays elsewhere and whether you're ready for it, without anyone at your firm knowing you asked.

➡️ Have a question for our team? Send it our way.

We’re currently recruiting for a wide variety of roles in fiduciary services, including:

The full list of career opportunities, including locations and next steps, is exclusively available to Connective Services subscribers.

Connective Services is a newsletter brought to you by Financial Recruiters International and Alexander Raymond. Both firms are full-cycle recruiting companies connecting fiduciary services organizations with highly skilled candidates. Financial Recruiters International serves the financial sector while Alexander Raymond specializes in insurance and contract staffing.