Candidate Support and Business Development Adviser, Nikita Phillips was delighted to join ex-teacher Samantha Townsend, to discuss a day in the life of a candidate on the St. James’s Place Academy.
The St. James’s Place Adviser Academy is the largest financial adviser Academy and is a popular choice for career changers just like Samantha.
In this video, we discuss Term 1, Term 2 and Term 3 on the St James’s Place Academy.
Watch the video below to catch up, or continue reading to discover more about our conversation…
A: Term 1 was a little bit different than I anticipated, I thought I was going to be learning to give financial advice, but Term 1 was just completing the Level 4 financial advice diploma. R01 and R05 as these need to be completed prior to starting, and in Term 1 we had the support to complete R02, R03 and R04 exams.
We had certain dates we had to pass the exams by to stay within our academy cohort and we would meet up as a group every few weeks to check in. We were independently working towards those exams with the support of an online study portal, which included interactive e-learning, videos, mock exams and study guides.
We would then have a couple of days of workshops before we were due to sit the exam to solidify our learning. At the time of my cohort, Term 1 was completely Zoom based, and we never met in person, so we were all 2D in Term 1.
I started in a cohort in November 2022, we had to pass R03 in December, R02 in January and R04 in February to move onto Term 2. So, an exam a month.
A: Yes, in Term 2, we would get together as a cohort in person in an SJP location. For me this was Bristol as that was closer to me – the other at the time was Manchester. We’d go for 2 or 3 days with travel and overnight accommodation covered. We all got to meet each other, have dinners together, it was really good fun and meeting people in 3D finally!
In between those face to face periods, we would have a full timetable, so from Monday – Friday. For example, on a Monday morning we would always have a check in with our tutor, from 09:30 to 11:00 just catching up, explaining what the week ahead was going to look like, what we were going to be doing.
Then we would have, most weeks about 50% of it would be independent learning, so we would have to go to the SJP house, watch videos, take notes, do activities and so on, and then we would have live sessions, group sessions, and as the weeks progressed in Term 2 it became very roleplay heavy and lots of observations.
So we would take the knowledge and skills we had about learning about meeting clients initially, what to say to them, what to do, the regulations and what we could or couldn’t do and practise in pairs, and then eventually towards the end of Term 2 and in Term 3, I was observed by an Academy Development Manager and given valuable feedback about what we did in the meetings and how to improve.
At the end of Term 2, we had a face-to-face finale where the whole cohort got together again. We did a final presentation of the business plan that we’d constructed previously as a group, and got appointed by the FCA too.
A: This is when you start to have client meetings. I basically asked lots of my friends if they would be practice clients for me, which then ultimately turned into real clients. In the first week, I was observed doing 3 initial client meetings by my Academy Development Manager who visited to my house to observe the meetings.
Since then, I have been working on those client cases. I have 9-10 cases on the go, and my Academy Development Manager is going to watch me present a solution to each of these clients and I hope to be signed off to then give financial advice and present solutions to actual clients.
I have been learning on the job. For example, I have a lady who is selling her garage, not attached to her house but part of her dwelling, and I wasn’t sure on the capital gains, and whether she would have personal residence relief. So I’ve been on the phone to HMRC and SJP’s technical experts (Technical Connection). The support around you is unparalleled.
So, I have been researching a lot in the background, learning at the same time, which I quite enjoy because it makes it more interesting because it’s quite varied. That’s where I’m at now.
To find out more, watch the full webinar recording (at the top of the page), where we discuss in more detail what a day in the life of an academy candidate looks like.
Find out more about the opportunities with St. James’s Place Financial Adviser Academy, check out their Featured Company Profile page.
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You can find out more on how to apply to join the St. James’s Place Financial Adviser Academy and get in touch to find out more information about the programme.
Read the following article from SJP, to find out more information on changing careers within the Academy:
