Why I Quit Working In The Financial “Services” Industry

I Want to Help People, Not Sell People

Why I Started Working In The Financial Services Industry

Before I jump into why I left the financial services, let me tell you why I started working in the financial services industry. In 2010 I graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics. As a sign of youthful immaturity and how little university prepares you for the working world, I thought hedge funds and investment firms would be lining up to offer me a six-figure salary in a challenging job, making economic forecasts and putting my degree to good use.

Reality hit me like a bag of bricks.

It turns out, 2 years after the financial crisis, investment firms were not tripping over themselves to hire a 21 year old, with no work experience from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

With a mountain of student debt, and my family experiencing its own financial crisis I needed income wherever I could get it. I resumed my old summer job cleaning pools at a country club which I told myself would be just for “a few weeks while I continue my job hunt”. Five months later: I was still cleaning pools and picked up a second job as a busboy at a local steakhouse.

By November of 2010, I began to become rather desperate for some type of job in the financial sector. I decided to apply for a “financial advisor” position, with a life insurance company. I won’t say which company, but I knew deep down what this job was and what it was not. It is incredible how much we can delude ourselves into believing what we need to believe when we are truly desperate. I needed this to be a job where I would make good money for doing good work, so that is what I forced myself to believe.

What My Job as a “Financial Advisor” Was Like

What exactly did my “financial advising” consist of? Mostly, cold calling people out of the phone book and asking them to buy life insurance. When I wasn’t doing that, the managers at the company were encouraging me to ask every person in my life to invest their retirement and life savings in some shitty, high fee mutual funds. This is the exact OPPOSITE of what I advocate people do today, which is invest in low cost index funds.

I’m not telling you whether or not you should invest in a mutual fund or an index fund, but I would highly recommend you discuss with your financial advisor and 3rd parties what kind of “fees” you are paying for their services and how that will impact your investment returns over the long run.

Put simply, my incentive was to sell not provide meaningful financial advice for people. So I think of my previous role in that job as a “financial advisor” In Dr. Evil air quotes.

So I was straining every personal relationship in my life, I was getting screamed at by strangers who I was shaming into buying insurance, but at least I was making money… right?

Wrong. The reward for all of this sacrifice, 100% commission, zero salary or benefits, oh, and I was charged “office fees” of $500 per month. Which would be great if I actually had an office and wasn’t sharing a table with 15 other 20-something “financial advisors”.

Quitting

Have you ever tried to cancel a cable package? If so, you know how difficult of a relationship that can be to terminate; you get transferred to a department called “retention” where you spend what feels like hours being “sold” on why it is in your best interest to stay with the cable company and how they will do whatever it takes from keeping you from leaving.

That is kind of what it felt like to quit this job as a “financial advisor”. The first time I tried to quit, (which took guts because I had no other job prospects) my boss told me I was just “having a bad month” and things will turn around if I keep grinding. The second time I tried to quit, I was given a bit of a speech about “not being a quitter” and some bullshit line about “making something of myself”.

These attempts to quit were half-hearted because I was still trying to convince myself that this could be a meaningful job and that my “big break was coming”. That big break almost did come. I had a commitment from a larger company to purchase a group benefits package for hundreds of their employees. This deal would have netted me tens of thousands of dollars had it gone through.

Given how big of a deal this was, my boss was supposed to come with me to “close the deal”. But given that we already had a verbal commitment I guess he thought he did not need to show up so I ended up going solo to sign the paperwork. When I got to the office, the owner of the company basically told me that they were using me as leverage to have their current group benefits provider lower their rates. I never had a chance.

There is the old saying “don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” which of course is good advice on managing your expectations in life. Try telling that to someone who is financially desperate and was just told they are about to close a deal that is potentially life-altering. When the rug was pulled out from under me, I was devastated. This was the last straw. The next day, I handed in my resignation, effective immediately. I took a 2-month job working at a summer camp before beginning my master’s degree in economics later that fall.

Today, I am happy to report I am putting my education to good use working in developing public policy. I am not making the crazy money the stupid 21 year-old me expected, but I am making good money, for good work, and have never been happier.

I sometimes think what would have happened if that big deal had gone through. How different my life might be right now and what a blessing in disguise that was to give me the courage to quit on the financial services industry for good.