Like a lot of people, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I grew up. I certainly didn’t know that being a Financial Advisor was even a job, so, at GCSE and then A Level, I picked subjects that I thought I would enjoy. For A Level, that was Economics, Accounting, English Language and PE. I thought I would really like PE – I got an A* at GCSE and I love sport – but there was more biology in the subject at college and so I didn’t do quite so well. In my second year, I focussed on Economics and added a one-year Maths A Level.

Looking back, I’m not really sure why I chose Economics; I think a friend did, so I joined him. Luckily, we had a really good tutor and he taught us a lot. As a child, I remember being interested and a bit scared about the idea that the value of stocks and shares could go up and down. But at A Level, the principle of investing in capital so you can earn more in future really stuck with me.

I was at college from 2008 to 2010 during the financial crisis and jobs weren’t that available, so the decision to go to university was partly because of that. I got into Brighton through Clearing to do Economics and Finance. Brighton was a great place to live; it’s not a campus university so I was living in the town. I went straight into a houseshare with some other people. Fortunately, we were all fairly sensible and we would share the shopping and the cooking between us. It worked well.

Because I still didn’t know what I wanted to do after university, I don’t think I had the drive to do as well as I perhaps should have done. A degree is about effort; you can get so far being naturally bright, but you are rewarded if you put in the extra effort. If I had applied myself, I think I could have done even better. My degree was a three-year course but there was the option to do a year out in industry if we wanted. Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, none of the job options available really grabbed me so I didn’t take that up but looking back I should have taken the opportunity.

By summer 2013, I had got my degree but still had no idea what I wanted to do! At first, I carried on working some hours at Sainsburys, just to bring in some money. I was applying to office jobs and graduate schemes that sounded interesting, either because they were local or they were relevant to my degree. Graduate schemes are really hard to get into as so many people apply, and there can be five or six stages to the recruitment process. Again, I think not knowing what I wanted to do meant I didn’t have the purpose to do well in interviews. Interviewers always want to know a lot about you but I didn’t know what questions to ask them. How do you really know what to ask unless you do the job? I even went to an interview at MI5 in London, which was the toughest interview of all!

A financial services company called Old Mutual invited me for an interview for an introductory role in financial planning and I was offered the job. The salary in terms of my take home pay wasn’t great but it included things like life insurance, income protection, medical insurance, etc., so the overall package was worth much more than just my salary.

In the office, I would hear people on the phone talking to FAs. I realised it wasn’t the Football Association so who was it? This was when I started to understand the role of Financial Advisors and was given the option to take professional qualifications myself. I would recommend anyone to take any training that is offered to them! I started with the Financial Advisor Level 3 course, which started me on my professional training.

To become a Financial Advisor in my own right, I then needed to complete the Level 4 qualification. I decided to choose the Certified Insurance Institute as the professional body to gain my qualification which consisted of six exams in total and covers more areas. Lots of the preparation was self-study but my employer gave me time during the week. That was probably the hardest part, making time to study in your own time sometimes as well as doing your day job – really hard when you know that your mates are off playing football! The final exam felt particularly relevant to the job. You get a case study detailing a person’s financial situation and then the questions are based around how you would advise them.

Whilst doing these exams, I had changed jobs a couple of times, working in a couple of smaller companies who specialised in different areas to help me gain a wider experience. I had my first interview for a Financial Planner role in April 2019 with Hampshire Financial Planning, part of St James Place Group. It was what I had wanted to do for years by then and I was so pleased when I was offered the job.

They put me on an internal training scheme designed for people like me who had industry experience but not the client contact. Once a month, I would spend a week in Bristol on formal learning and then I would spend three weeks shadowing other FAs so I could see them in practice. I had the advantage of already having all my Level 4 qualifications so I was able to ‘fast track’ what should have been a year’s course. I was then able to be signed off as a competent Financial Advisor, following observations and submitting my work and exam results to a qualified person to check my advice.

I would urge people to consider Financial Advice as a career. If you don’t want to sit in an office all day, if you’re genuinely interested in people and what they want to achieve, it can be really rewarding. It’s quite well paid too! It’s not always easy, of course, and there will be some bits that you just have to get through to achieve your goals but it’s definitely worth it. I’m now self-employed working with St James Place so that gives me freedom perhaps to take clients out to dinner or for a round of golf. It gives me a good work/life balance as long as I do put the effort in. It’s a fun job, actually, and it gives you a good feeling when you can see that you have made a difference to someone’s life. Perhaps your advice has enabled them to retire early or help their children on to the property ladder; it feels good to help them achieve that.

The financial advice I would give to people when they get their first job is put 10% of your salary each month into a savings account to build up a bit of a ‘buffer’. Keep at least three months’ worth as a contingency fund and then start looking to invest the rest.