What should I study in college to become a financial advisor or planner? and what major should i take?
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Answer:
Economics or business. However, do not become a financial advisor! It's a scam job that has you cold calling people all day and selling your life and soul to make a sell. Again, it's not about advising people or even helping them out, it's convincing them to buy mutual funds that earn you a comission.
As far as the proper education needed to land a financial advisor job, a background in business and economics is preferred. It really doesn't matter though because you will need to get your series 7 & series 63 license before you can sell anything or make any decent wage. Most companies will either provide courses for you, subsidize course fees, or leave you out on your own to get the license by yourself. But licensing is the easy part! Most agencies have extremely high drop out rates in the first year. When you're interviewing for positions they will throw at you all these amazing numbers of what you could be making in your first year, your second year, etc.. But again, these are the numbers that their established agents put up, not the 60+% of new hires that fail out of the industry in the first year. For instance, when I was offered a position at one company, the person I was interviewing with actually showed me their pay stubbs from 5 years ago when they were getting started.
Its a really tough road to build up a respectable client base, which you'll have to sell your soul to do. It's sales at its absolute worst, but many people like myself would not give up at it. If you quit, you fail. And I wasn't going to quit, so I wasn't going to fail. More than likely, you'll pour your life and soul into it, posting up flyers and going on countless meetings with clients that you've never met before that actually know more investing than you do. In the end, the only people that make it are those that have FRA's (Friends Relatives and Associates, you'll get to know that term well) as clients initially. And, have no ethics whatsoever when it comes to selling their products to people they don't know.
It's one of the most scandelous industries out there and I reccomend that you stay away.
major in Finance for one! Most colleges have the outline for all types of careers. Speak to your school counselor and go from there.
I would recommend that you major in business and once you get your degree check into becoming a junior broker at a firm while you work on getting licensed and learning the business.
Accounting and finance. Major in accounting. You can get a job anywhere, and it pays well. I'm an accountant and have worked for both Fortune 500 companies, and Indy 500 Race Teams. The door is open in so many fields, because it's all about $$$, isn't it?
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