Guidance for Future Planners

 

JJ Burns, CFP® is CEO of JJ Burns & Company in New York, a wealth management firm catering to ultra-high-net-worth clients. His firm has been going strong for almost three decades and regularly hires interns.

What should financial planning students do to get their foot in the door in the profession? “Intern, intern, intern,” says Burns. “Just don't intern at one place. Intern at a few places and start early in your sophomore year. Don’t work for a family or friend’s business. Try to get out there and use your resume to get that internship on your own. Use your contacts and use them very, very wisely.”

Most students don’t use their contacts well, says Burns. “They think sending an email or a text is going to do it. No, that's not how it works. It takes relationship management skills.”

Burns recommends seeking an internship that provides the opportunity to network with people from many different business areas. “If you're working in a very small department at a big company, you might only interact with the two or three people you report to, and you're not going to learn much except from that small microcosm,” he explains.

When interviewing, students and recent graduates should ask questions to ensure a company’s values align with their own, according to Burns. These questions include: How does this firm grow? How does someone starting out grow here? What is the progression of how a person grows inside this business?

“I would 100% recommend the financial service/financial planning sector as a profession,” says Burns. Even though he started his career on Wall Street, he has devoted most of his life as a financial planner running his own firm. For him, the profession has proved to be personally enriching and fulfilling, while enabling him to significantly improve the lives of others, including clients experiencing hardships like divorce and terminal illness.

What’s the one trait Burns looks for when interviewing new candidates? He says, “Their personal story of finding conflict in their lives and resolving it, because that requires asking for help and understanding and figuring out a plan of how to resolve it or live with it.”

Extra quotes from JJ Burns:

“I especially love this profession for women, because I think women tend to be a little bit more on the nurturing side. They also tend to be able to multitask a bit better, and their focus can be very client-centered and focused on their needs and wants.”

“The best thing I can tell a student is take more courses on critical thinking and relationship management because they're going to need those skills to get a job.” What’s one of the biggest misconceptions students have about the financial planning profession. According to J.J. Burns, it’s that they must work directly with clients as traditional financial planners. “No, you don’t,” he explains. “You could become an operations professional, paraplanner, compliance professional or even an attorney. I know someone who got their CFP® certification and liked it so much, they went to law school and became a CFP® lawyer and compliance professional,” he says.