The computers were down at Keats, Connelly & Associates' Phoenix office, so one of the staff members placed a service call to the IT consulting company. Employees at the wealth management firm waited as two hours went by, then four hours, then a few more. The IT repair folks still hadn't arrived. But this was par for the course --Keats Connelly had once waited as long as 12 precious hours for its IT service provider to re-connect them. That's when CEO Dale Walters decided they needed someone in-house to prevent such delays from happening again.
The company launched a full-court- press to find an IT person--and fast. "Microsoft has a Web site where you can post to find certified people, so we did that," Walters says. "We also talked to other people in the industry and placed an ad in the paper."
That was 12 years ago. Since then, the firm has hired three people to service its computers; having in-house staff has reduced the company's down-time from four to 12 hours to less than two hours at a time, on average. The firm subsequently hired administrative assistants, a business development manager and a marketing assistant, as well as an IT manager. The staff totals 32 today.
While hiring an extra set [or more]of hands to share the work--especially the work that financial planners may not understand or want to do--may sound good, it can be tough to evaluate people whose job responsibilities have little to do with financial transactions. After all, how do you evaluate the expertise of a computer systems manager? Or a marketing manager? Or, for that matter, an administrative assistant?
Finding the Right Person
"It starts with what needs to be done," says Suzanne L. Rey, principal of Rey Edwards Group, an El Cajone, Calif. recruiting and work force consulting firm and author of Secrets from a Body Broker: A Revealing, No-Nonsense Handbook for Hiring Managers, Recruiters and Job Seekers. Because most wealth management firms are relatively small offices with fewer than two-dozen employees, she advises not getting too hung up on job titles or traditional roles. Companies should first identify what needs to be done, Rey says.
That's what the 19-person Scottsdale branch of WealthTrust Arizona does. When CEO Paul Ahern lists what he expects in an ideal candidate for an assistant or office manager position, the inventory is a bit demanding: "They have to have some technology background. They do a lot of analysis work here, so we like to have them be familiar with different tools like Morningstar, Reuters, Bloomberg. We prefer them to be Series 7-licensed so that they can handle trades. We like them to be able to do normal office duties like filing and typing. Our clients tend to get to know the assistants more than the advisor, so they have to be good on the phone and good with people," Ahern says.
Employees in wealth management firms may also need to know industry regulations, adds Mitchell Feldman, president of A.E. Feldman Associates Inc., a Great Neck, N.Y. search and recruitment firm specializing in financial services and technology. For example, marketing professionals must have experience creating campaigns and materials that are in compliance with SEC regulations. Technology professionals need to be versed in technological security to safeguard clients' personal and financial information. It's a good idea to check first with your firm's compliance officer to ensure that you're clear on what this new hire needs to know about doing business in your industry.
Desperately Seeking...Someone
Once you have an idea of the person you need--whether it's a marketing coordinator who can handle some administrative work, an office manager with some IT background, or a bi-lingual receptionist who can file and type correspondence-- it's time to start the search. Both Rey and Feldman agree that networking is an excellent way to find the right candidate.
"Talk to people in associations that you belong to and the financial institutions that you work with," Feldman suggests. "Talk to your core product vendors and ask for their help. Sometimes they'll know someone internally or know of someone good who recently left another company or was let go because of a merger."
Finding people through your network generally yields quality candidates because no one wants to refer someone who will reflect badly on them, says Rey. However, if the network doesn't yield results, then it's time to cast a wider net. But before you go placing help-wanted ads in local newspapers and online, be sure they're going to bear the right fruit.
Here is Rey's advice. "What you need to do is list your three or four major deal-breakers: 'Must have a few years of marketing experience; must have experience with this kind of software.' Right away, you can hone the list down quickly," she says. "Don't say, for example, 'Must have a Bachelor's degree,' if you don't really mean that."
Double-check the resumes that come in against the requirements you listed and dump the ones that don't meet your needs. Then, says Rey, it's time for a phone interview. Since most employees in small companies will need to spend some time on the phone interacting with clients, this gives you a chance to evaluate the candidate's phone manner, she says. It shows the level of their communications skills and how the person handles him- or herself under pressure. The phone interview doesn't need to be that long, she adds. Asking three or four questions about your deal-breakers during a 10- or 15- minute call should be enough to figure out if you want to invite the candidate to an in-person interview.
But Are They Any Good?
In Morristown, N.J. where Brinton Eaton Wealth Advisors numbers three support staff among its 13 employees, Bob DiQuollo says that he uses a matrix approach when evaluating prospective hires, ranking candidates from a low of one to a high of 10 in the areas that have been identified as necessary to the job. Five people in the company interview each person who's being considered for hire. After all, small firms can't afford to train new hires for months only to discover they aren't working out. There are only so many people who can pick up the slack.
"We use the consensus of the group when hiring. It's not just one person. Sometimes, one of us might see something about a specific skill that I see as a 10, and someone else sees as a six or an eight," DiQuollo says. Each member of the interview team has different experience and can spot different strengths or weaknesses.
As you evaluate skill sets that may be somewhat foreign to you, there are other clues that can help. Look for special certifications or continuing education classes which might indicate that the candidate is interested in professional development. If you have a friend or family member who knows your business and is experienced in the area in which you're hiring, you might also enlist that person to help evaluate the candidate in a brief phone or in-person interview, says Rey.
Walters looks for details in his interviews. He asks candidates to give him specific examples of how they solved a particular problem or challenge. Rey says other good questions include what type of work the applicant likes to do--and what he or she doesn't like to do. If a candidate inadvertently names some key responsibilities for the job you wish to fill as among those they hate, that's a red flag, she says.
Of course, you could also tap outside resources. Executive recruiters and employment companies come in just about every stripe, representing candidates with secretarial, marketing, financial, technology and other skill sets. Although fees vary by market and position, you can expect to pay a recruiter between 15 percent and 20 percent of the candidate's first-year salary. Some work on a flat-fee basis.
Last year, Brinton Eaton began hedging its employment bets by using an employee leasing firm. That is, staff became employees of a leasing company, even though they work in Brinton Eaton's offices, just as do regular employees. DiQuollo and his partners lease the employees from the company which provides benefits like health insurance and paid vacations, while also managing payroll and all HR functions. That way, should the company need to downsize or let someone go, there is no liability to the company and no unemployment insurance to pay.
Pay Up
Then there's the matter of what to pay these people. A recruiter can help you identify a proper salary range for your market, but if you're going the solo route, there are other resources that can help. Many industry associations publish salary surveys, although you may need to fork over anywhere from $50 to several hundred dollars to get them. Check first with industry associations like the American Marketing Association, Association of Executive and Administrative Professionals, and even the Financial Planning Association which may be able to put you in touch with other professionals to get a sense of what they pay their staffers.
Try also some of the online salary guides, such as www.salary.com and www.payscale.com. These sites have free information, as well as premium content that is available for a nominal fee. You can customize the parameters by geography, but if you're creating a non-traditional job description, you'll need to choose the job title that most closely matches what you're creating and use that as a basis for comparison.
Once you have a sense of the salary range, Rey advises falling in the upper end of it. "Don't be chintzy. So many employers say that the salary is between [a range] and give them $2,000 less than the maximum. That $2,000 could be the difference between someone just accepting the job and some- one walking in happy to accept it."
Of course you have to pay what you can afford and doing the math can be tricky. Walters found himself spending more time on administrative duties than he should have, so it was clear that he needed some help. But he admits that the question of whether or not to hire someone is not always black-and-white. "The easy answer is that you go backward and look at your margins and divide and see what the break-even is. The reality is that you just kind of know you need someone. The first time you're hiring someone, you're going to have more people than you have work to do. If you wait so long that you just can't do it all anymore, you've waited too long."
While evaluating your next marketing assistant or computer guru might not be as dire an undertaking as, say, hiring a trauma surgeon, it is a process that should be taken seriously. If you take the time to use the right resources, qualify your candidates and ask specific questions about their skills, you should find a candidate who will help your company grow while you get back to earning.
Gwen Moran has written for a wide variety of business publications and is the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Business Plans.
