“I wanted to work in finance for a year because I knew I wanted to be a financial advisor in the long term, but didn’t know how that path looked or what steps to take right out of school to accomplish that,” Phox said

He yearned to return home, and did so without a job in August 2018. But his period of unemployment didn’t last long because shortly after he was back in Wichita he attended an investment summit hosted by 6 Meridian. Many of the firm’s clients were there, and a bunch of them are parents of friends he went to private school with. Phox reconnected with the parents, and evidently made a big impression.

“I guess some of the clients said good words on my behalf to the partners when they were looking to hire young advisors,” said Phox, who in short order was asked to interview with 6 Meridian.

Setting A High Bar
According to Dechant, advisor firms looking to hire young talent need to have a strong value statement.

“You need to give people a reason to want to come work with you,” she said. “And that’s twofold. We set out to establish a very clear compensation and career path for our advisor personnel so they understand what it takes to work here and to get more responsibility and to move up the career path with the firm. And that’s a great selling point when you’re talking to younger talent.”

The second aspect, she added, is that the firm sets a high bar in terms of what it wants from prospective new hires regarding the education and knowledge base they need so they can work with clients and help the firm deliver its deep-dive value proposition on the wealth planning side.

That clear messaging resonated with Phox, as did the team atmosphere he said he felt as he went through the interview process. He started at 6 Meridian two months after returning home, and he’s currently working on attaining the certified financial planning designation. He said the goal is to take over some of the advisory roles of the partners so they can go after the bigger clients who can bring in more revenue for the business.

He current job title is registered associate, and he works mainly under Sarah Hampton and Thomas Kirk, two wealth advisors and founding partners.

“I’m running the client relationship in the background, and they’re taking the lead in the meetings and all of the client interaction,” Phox said. “It’s set up that way so I could learn the meat of the work and the day-to-day job of being an advisor.”

A Helping Hand
Hiring young people in the hope of molding them into full-fledged wealth advisors and investment managers who can help take an advisory firm into the future is one thing. Training them to be grow into their expected roles is another.