Although it may seem like common sense, here are some recent reasons wealth management candidates have been deselected from an interview process.
Eddy Ricci, Jr., CFP ®, CEPA ® One that jumps out to me is the way a candidate responded to a partner of a firm about scheduling their next interview. The first issue was the partner of the firm gave a number of interview times and the candidate could not make any of them work. Life is busy and people have commitments however, if you are serious about gaining a new position, you make interviewing with the partner of the firm a top priority. Second, the email response was too casual. “Hey, how about these times?” was all the partner needed to see to deselect the candidate.
Michael P. Connaughton, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®: We’ve seen plenty of highly qualified candidates deselected from a position they were pursuing for reasons unrelated to their experience. Some of the main culprits we hear from clients that have caused them to move on from candidates are the following: not being prepared with the appropriate firm research, failing to highlight specific examples of how they have helped clients, inability to articulate their future career aspirations, showing up late or needing to reschedule an interview, not sending a follow up/thank you email, general lack of accountability and/or blaming previous organizations for why they moved on. Background and experience are important but preparedness along with a thoughtful interview approach is equally as critical.