Meet the paraplanners: Siobhan Record

Siobhan Record is a paraplanner and trainee financial adviser for Worcestershire-based Prosser Knowles. She joined the firm earlier this year and is its first paraplanner.

How did you become a paraplanner?

I guess I just fell into the role.  About 5 years ago I joined an office of a national IFA network in what was supposed to be a temporary position.  I was only supposed to be working as an administrator for two weeks but I stayed on and as I started to take on more responsibilities I moved up to being a paraplanner.  I’ve been with Prosser Knowles since July 2009.

What are your career goals?

Ultimately, I want to be a consultant and I’m training for it now.  At the moment I do a lot of analysis and preparation work for advisers but soon I’ll be meeting clients as well to get used to interacting with them.  As soon as I joined this industry I could see it had a lot of potential as a career, with lots of opportunities to learn.

Are you studying for any qualifications?

I’m fully FPC qualified,and I’m part diploma qualified.  I’m hoping to become fully diploma qualified next year so I can become a consultant.  I enjoy studying and really like the different educational options available in this industry.

What is your average day like?

I’ll start off the day getting work given to me by a consultant, and I’ll prepare all the files they need for a client meeting.  For this I will need to research the products available in the market, ensure they match the client’s profile and make sure the adviser has all the information they will require to make a recommendation.

After the consultant has met with the client, I’ll then prepare everything that needs to be done with their files after the meeting.  I also make sure records are kept updated and any files are ready in time for a client’s next regular review.

After Christmas I’ll be joining the advisers in client meetings, and will get to see the whole process of finding a product, making a recommendation, and following it through to completion.

What is the most rewarding part of being a paraplanner?

I love getting all the files together, and seeing the case come back with a successful recommendation being made by the consultant.  I also love the ongoing learning the financial services offers.  There are plenty of qualifications you can take and I really enjoy building up my knowledge and progressing towards my goal of becoming an adviser.

Siobhan’s Paraplanner Top Tips

Make sure you are organised – It’s vital to be well organised to do this job.  Often you will have as many as 20 files on the go at once and you have make sure you’re tracking them all and providing them to advisers when needed.

Be conscientious – You’ve got to work very hard to this job so you can keep up with the advisers and the needs of clients.  Consultants expect me to work at least as hard as they do, if not more.

Get yourself qualified as soon as possible – I think qualifications are really important in this business.  If you want to do the best job you can, and move your career on, then it’s absolutely vital to be studying as much as you possibly can.

The Adviser View

Leighton Parkes, financial planning consultant, explains why paraplanners are important to him

Siobhan’s role is to prepare all recommendation information for us, looking at how a product meets the client’s profile and ensure it will benefit them.  Every six months we review a client’s files, and Siobhan will be responsible for making sure everything is ready for our client reviews, and will provide me with the most up-to-date information.

Siobhan is our first paraplanner, and has been with us for a few months now, and she’s become invaluable to the team.  Prior to her joining, the advisers were doing this all for themselves, but time is short and having a paraplanner means we can make more time available to see clients.

Using paraplanners is a pretty new concept for us, but in the past few months it has proved to be very worthwhile and I think we would find it difficult to go back to a situation where advisers where having to do so much back-office work.