We took time and care and met some fantastic candidates along the way but – today – we’re really pleased to welcome two new members of The Paraplanners’ team.
A few years ago if you asked anyone about employing new paraplanners you would usually get a response something along the lines of…’I just can’t find the right person’, ‘dwindling numbers’, ‘not a proper paraplanner’ etc.
There was an impression that there was a shortage of paraplanners and of the ones that were around many were enmeshed in their firms culture and set in their ways. They were expensive to employ and all the good ones went off to be financial planners at some point anyway. It was all a bit downbeat about the future!
So when we decided to recruit earlier this year, I was a little nervous. It’s not something we do often or lightly so finding the right person for the job seemed a little daunting.
How wrong I was!
It’s fair to say that we were a little overwhelmed with the response to the ad. There were certainly a lot of interviews to hold.
Meeting the candidates has left me invigorated and hopeful for the future. The enthusiasm and positivity was infectious. I spoke to so many great people from all corners of the UK – if you were one of them, thank you very much! There were pension specialists, people interested in personal finance social media, young advisers looking for more flexibility, older people with amazing experience and expertise, the list goes on. They all shared a desire to do the right thing, and that was wonderful. They really understood the role of the paraplanner and how paraplanning fits into the financial planning process.
In short this is what the last few months have looked like:
- Forty applications
- Twenty first interviews
- Eighteen technical assessments
- Five meet the team sessions
- Two new paraplanners
Narrowing it down was so difficult.
With all that said, I am very pleased to announce that we now have two excellent new team members. I would like to introduce you to Kirsty Smith and Shannon Stazicker (whose pictures you’ll find at the end of this post).
You can read a little more about them on our ‘Who we are‘ page.
Welcome to the team Kirsty and Shannon!
And thank you to everyone who took the time to apply to work with us here at The Paraplanners.
Kirsty Smith
Shannon Stazicker