Trainee Paraplanner to Paraplanner
RoxyParaplanner
Member
Asking on behalf of a colleague -
How do your firms decide when you are no longer a trainee?
Do you have a development programme, is it based on experience, on exams or a combination?
I personally feel you do not need dipolma to move on from trainee but our company includes this to move on.
I would love to hear from as many of you as possible.
Thanks
Comments
Hi Roxy,
We develop our administrators, so they can write the less technical letters such as portfolio rebalances or ISA top up recommendations. The advantages of this are that it allows the Paraplanners to concentrate on the more technical work and also gives those administrators who have ambitions to be a Paraplanner a flavour of the role. Those who want to pursue a career in Paraplanning are then mentored with more technical reports for a period of say 6 months. If they reach the required standard, they are then made a permanent member of the Paraplanning team. We do set Diploma as a minimum standard for someone to start that 6-month mentoring period.. I know exams don't always tell the whole story about someone's technical ability, but it is an important part of what is after all, a technical role and helps to set a target for Paraplanner wannabes
I agree with Gustavo above. I would definitely expect any of our Paraplanners to have Diploma as a minimum, especially given the jump up in salary from Admin to Paraplanners. As Gustavo said though it doesn't guarantee a good Paraplanner and there are other things just as important, however, it does show a level of commitment and technical ability and certainly wouldn't want to pay a Paraplanner salary without this minimum.
Thank you both for your input. My colleague is a trainee paraplanner and has been in the paraplanning department for 2 years and is working through the diploma exams at her own pace to fit in with being a single parent ect... Before joinging the team she worked in our admin department.
I feel her experience gained over the last two years should promote her to a paraplanner level rather than trainee and would like to help her evidence this to the management team that she should no longer be a trainee. Plus the salaray increase here from trainee paraplanner to paraplanner isn't a great jump (i know i've been there).
It should work in her favour that she is already working there, as she will be known to management.
I would go through the criteria detailed on the apprenticeship. When I looked at this a few years ago there was a matrix of skills and descriptions of each competency level. I'd link it for you but I had it saved at my old firm and I can't currently see it from a quick Google. Hopefully you can find something similar. Funnily enough, I had looked it up intending to prove I wasn't a trainee anymore but it turned out I did have some gaps to fill and I ended up not showing it to management!
Apprenticeship details here
Paraplanner. F1, Apple, Nutella, ice cream. No trite motivational quotes. Turning a bit northern.
Interesting to see that an apprentice would be required to complete the Certificate in Paraplanning. I assume that the Diploma would be an acceptable equivalent? If I were to take on people in the future that wanted to study I'd be more likely to encourage them down the Diploma route, especially as the pensions module is absent from the certificate qualification
Andy, I attempted the J09 qualification and I didn't bother, I just couldn't fathom what they wanted or how I could 'justify' with my usual detail in only 500 words. In some cases I would usually use cashflow or at least a spreadsheet. Maybe the assignments model suits people with more academic experience than me but a number of people have commented on here about the lack of study support for J09. I don't know if there are more case studies and model answers available these days but I felt totally incapable and it really put me off studying for a while.
When I did R06, it was relatively easy as several past papers are available showing you how to answer all of the question types that come up. Insert relevant product knowledge (revised when you get the case studies) and off you go. In the meantime, R05 was easy and R04, I felt like it deserved more credits but it was at least easy to get on with as the knowledge was useful in my daily job and it was often almost interesting. Demand for at retirement advice is set to mushroom + advisers due to retire so I think R04 is a must exam.
Basically, unless someone really prefers assignments to exams, I would recommend finishing the diploma over J09 to most people. Also a lot of employers still don't know much about J09 and will assume the Certificate in Paraplanning is a level 3 qualification, meaning that realistically a candidate would have to finish the diploma anyway to get the recognition.