Recruitment Inflation Is Driving Advisor Misplacement

By Ryan Shanks, Co-founder and CEO, for WealthManagement.com

I recently had the pleasure of writing an article for WealthManagement.com on a topic I feel strongly about, one that I believe is a major factor in advisors making rash decisions when it comes to joining firms. I call the phenomenon "Recruitment Inflation," which happens when firms over-inflate their successes by touting the number of new advisors they've brought on board, often misdirecting advisors who believe more = more.

Here's an excerpt from the article, where I discuss what Recruitment Inflation is, why it is detrimental to our industry, and how we can move forward in a different direction to drive change and put advisors on the right path. For the full article, visit www.wealthmanagement.com.

Excerpt:

[...] It's a moniker of success in our M&A-driven community. We often don't see beyond the "big number"; we're so obsessed with the rate of growth that we forget to ask ourselves, "What's the rate of advisor satisfaction?"

I call this "recruitment inflation," and it's a common reason advisors find themselves misplaced in their current roles. Recruiters tout head count as a selling point, averting advisors' attention away from the revolving door behind them.

This produces only one result: Advisors aren't fooled for long and eventually seek happiness elsewhere. As such, I believe addressing the root cause of retention issues and advisor dissatisfaction, rather than inflating successes, is how we're going to move forward as an industry.