“I thought if I at least booked one exam it would show I’m willing and have got some skin in the game. From there I was fortunate enough to start off as an administrator,” Cronin said.
A career in its own right
Looking ahead at his career options, Cronin explained that when he first joined First Wealth his plan was to eventually become an adviser, but he said now he is interested in exploring different areas and staying as a paraplanner.
“The nature of the job at First Wealth suits me down to the ground,” Cronin said.
He explained this is largely because of the hands-on nature of the role. He gets to be involved in client conversations and is not purely focused on the technical aspect of the role each day.
“Now I’m in the role, I look at what an adviser does and I don’t think it would suit me at the moment or in the near future.
"Obviously paraplanners aren’t spoken about in the same esteem as advisers, it’s definitely not a role that is well-known. I still to this day don’t say to my friends that I’m a paraplanner because they definitely wouldn’t know what that is,” Cronin said.
He thinks partly the reason for paraplanning not being a well-known job is because it often does not look like a career path in its own right.
“You can push yourself to become an adviser in a relatively quick space of time and unless you express a need to, nobody really stays in the paraplanning role for too long.
“So it’s just about building awareness and making it feel as though it can be a profession and career path,” Cronin said.
Looking at the profession as a whole, Cronin believes more awareness needs to be raised about the positive elements of the sector to help bring new talent into it.
He pointed to a lot of the advertising that surrounds financial products, and the adverts around avoiding financial scams and said these automatically build a negative perception of the profession with the public.
“There’s very little positive news out there about financial advice, so it's about getting success stories out there - that would be a great start,” Cronin said.
jane.matthews@ft.com
