Day 3 in Wiltshire
I started day 3 of my work experience by talking to Georgina Syrett about her experience as a paraplanner, a role that I was unaware of prior to my week at Hartsfield, despite its importance in every financial planning firm. She ran me through her different duties, which included compiling research, reviewing financial plans, and creating suitability reports, my favourite part being the modelling of people’s future finances based off different scenarios, which is useful for recommending how much to spend and save over time. This lead nicely into my shadowing of Matt Dixon, who told me about his journey into becoming a financial planner at Hartsfield and showed me the different stages of financial planning. It was a great insight into a career in financial planning, and I took away a much greater understanding of all the work that goes on behind the scenes.
DISC Profiling
Earlier in the week I took a DISC assessment, which described your personality and the way you respond and interact with different types of people and environment. Just a quarter of an hour’s worth of questions, about which of four options describe you best, gave you an incredible amount of data, which Joy Wisniewski (who’s dubbed ‘the Queen of DISC assessments’) used to advise me on how to best perform in interviews and in different work settings. My profile leant towards a ‘C’ personality, DISC standing for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance, which I thought accurately described me as more analytical and methodical than assertive and spontaneous. Overall, it was very useful to reflect on the different characteristics you possess, that self-awareness allowing you to improve both how you work with others, and work independently.
A meeting with the pod
Afterwards I sat in on a ‘pod’ meeting, where the Wiltshire office all came together to discuss any changes or new areas of focus, and feedback any ideas or suggestions. It really demonstrated how all the different roles in the office fitted together.
I finished the day by talking with John White, a financial planner, who told me about his years of experience in the finance sector, detailing all the different jobs he’s had, and their responsibilities, benefits, and drawbacks. As someone who wants to go and work in the financial sector, it was incredibly valuable to be able to ask questions to someone who had such wide experience in the industry, in companies of all sizes, and in many different roles.