Life before paraplanning
paraplannerthings
Member
in General
Interested to know what sort of jobs you all did before paraplanning and what brought you to the profession. I gradually moved into it over many years, having started as a temp in a call centre for Phoenix Life. My original path was healthcare!
Other Paraplanners I have known came from backgrounds in teaching, gym management, cafe staff, straight from school - a whole range of backgrounds!
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I worked for the Jobcentre/Benefits Agency for about 6/7 years before managing to escape, and my financial services career actually started at NPI (a great company to work for, sadly destroyed by AMP)
I started as a trainee paraplanner straight out of Uni (archaeology degree - bit of a career change!). I was looking for a cat to adopt in the local newspaper and saw the job advertised
I had mainly done bar and restaurant work after leaving school and my parents thought it was time I got a 'proper' job. The biggest employer in our area was a life and pensions company - the rest is history
Although I graduated as a Civil Engineer with offshore specialism, I didn't pursue it as a career. Worked as a butcher for a while before I got a temporary job in Lloyds TSB's life and pensions call centre, followed by another position as a temp with Birmingham City Council working on a voluntary redundancy project.
My first permanent job was in Birmingham Branch of Scottish Life as an administrator. I became a Broker Consultant and that's when I met paraplanners and realised that's what I wanted to be. That was gulp 18 years ago and I've been paraplanning ever since.
Broker Consultant for Eagle Star/Zurich before starting paraplanning business in 2002. Before that I was an adviser, an estate agent
and having dropped out of school, I drove a fork lift truck for a year (great fun).
Paraplanner. F1, Apple, Nutella, ice cream. No trite motivational quotes. Turning a bit northern.
School holiday job on a chicken farm, then worked in Retail for Bristol & West followed by a move to the T&C department at head office. Became a tied adviser flogging Eagle Star ISAs & bonds before going independent just after the turn of the century. Started paraplanning around 12 years ago.
haha that's brilliant!
Slightly different path into than most. From school, I went labourer - plasterer - Paraplanner (in a few different forms).
It's pretty much what I've always done.
Left school to work as a PA to an IFA who were part of a stockbroker. Black Monday hit (back when shoulder pads were very in) and moved to an IFA attached to an Insurance Broker for 16 years, then moved to an IFA attached to an Accountancy Practice and been here ever since. Haven't had a single year where the "job" has been the same so I think that's what's keeps me going.
Everyone's history is so interesting! @Sam did you get the cat?
I worked as a sales ledger clerk for a local department store, then took a job as a pensions administrator (about 18 years ago) for an IFA, then moved to another IFA, got qualified in old money, had a go at a few client meetings, but realised being the sales person wasn't for me, then settled into tech admin/report writing, left financial services to work in charity sector, got bored after a few months and came back to financial services in my current company, a lovely financial planning firm rather than IFA, been tech admin / paraplanner in varying degrees ever since, and qualified again in new money.
Ruth Baker
I got two
@Sam FANTASTIC :-)
Warfare Officer in the Royal Navy and then Pregnancy Fitness Instructor and the IFA admin assistant, finally made it paraplanner
My degree is in French studies so naturally I ended up in banking and then onto paraplanning....
I left school at 16 after my GCSEs and worked as a Cashier in my home town of Salisbury. I then got offered a job at a big Platform company at 18 so I ended up moving to London for this. After 8 years there I decided I needed something more Technical. An adviser I used to speak to all the time at the platform told me about 'paraplanning'....had no idea what it meant! However after looking into it I took the leap (and a paycut ouch!) to IFA admin two years ago, completed my diploma and started paraplanning a year ago.
Completed two AFs in October so on the way to Chartered - can say I actually cant imagine doing any other role now
After 25 years as a financial planner I thought I would take it easy for the last few years.. Only kidding..
I always enjoyed the technical side of the adviser role, constructing financial plans etc. but to be honest found most of my time as a FP underwhelming. Either looking for new clients or tea and cake meetings with lovely widows who had no interest in how I looked after their affairs. So, I sold up and embarked on a new career as a PP.
And, I love it...
This is a really interesting thread, it's great to hear how you all got into Paraplanning
It's a before and after for me. I graduated with a degree in Town Planning, decided it wasn't for me and ended up getting a job with an insurance company in Bristol. My wife and I decided to move back to our home county (Devon) when expecting our first child , I went for an interview for an administrator job and they offered me a position as a Paraplanner (I had no idea what it was at the time).
I loved Paraplanning, the research, products, providers plus a great community. I have now moved on to be responsible for our Adviser tech, a job I also love. I do still miss Paraplanning though!
Shops and different things at Lush Cosmetics, then 4-5 years temping including Abbey Life call centre, Barclays staff pension and IFA admin mat cover, different FS bits and bobs. Then IFA admin to Paraplanning.
So I haven't been too far outside of financial services that much but I think the Lush factory made me very aware of the importance of slick processes (I see so much of what we used to call 'double handling'), cost control, staff incentive methods, accounting techniques etc. All my 'business sense' (to the limited extent I can claim to have it) comes from when I was a hard working, low paid nobody. I wonder if it's an unexpected view but I find financial services much less conscious of costs and time and efficiency.
Manufacturing is also very anti-ego. Whatever your job is, everyone is a factory worker and I think that has always stayed with me as I have a strong aversion to any pretentiousness.
Amongst other things................ ice cream van driver. The tune of teddy bears picnic still haunts me.
It was a summer of discontent.
This is a really interesting perspective! I'm going to keep an eye out for double handling!
Oh I worked in an ice cream parlour - Feargal Sharkey - A Good Heart = screaming kids for me :-)
I didn't do A levels or uni and ended up working my way up to management in Waitrose. I figured this was not what i wanted to do so did a full time access course to allow me to go to uni but was still no clearer about what profession I wanted to end up in! Took a gap year job before going to uni to study nursing in HSBC..... never looked back! Started in the branch opening accounts, doing personal loans etc then was advised to start studying and here I am!
I studied linguistics in Poland and decided to take a gap year to improve my English and what better place to do this than England itself. right?
I had hoped for a job in a pub, hotel or a restaurant but a local job agency put me in an admin department of Lloyds TSB's home insurance division. Then somebody mentioned financial planning and it sounded interesting, so I sat and passed CF1 (while still working in insurance) and managed to get a job as a trainee tied financial adviser (standards back then were low!). This involved everything from factfinding to writing reports and submitting new business.
I then heard about paraplanning (the role was only officially emerging). When the life office I worked for was bought out by another, and we were all made redundant, I started applying for paraplanning jobs only to hear that I was overqualified (how times have changed!). It took about six months and a short stint as an IFA before a local firm gave me a chance as a paraplanner, and the rest, as they say, is history.