Recruiting and developing young talent is a must for the financial planning industry, whose workforce is rapidly aging out, with the average age of an advisor said to be in the mid-to-late 50s, many of whom are projected to retire in the next ten years.

Victoria Zhuang, a reporter at Financial Planning, recently wrote an article emphasizing the importance of introducing financial planning to high school students. To end the talent shortage in the wealth management field, we must engage with both universities and high schools to promote financial planning programs. Encouraging students to attend conferences, get internships, and connect with alumni benefits both students and schools. The challenge? They don’t actually know what the job entails.

Carina Diamond, MBA, CFP®, AIF®, the Director of Diversitas and Founder of Stella Secunda, is on a mission to attract more young talent and dispel the misconceptions about financial planning careers.

Carina believes high schools are a critical missing piece to solving the talent shortage. Many young individuals are unaware of the diverse career opportunities within wealth management, often assuming it’s all about numbers and hard sales.

In the article, Carina stresses that industry professionals must take responsibility for educating the next generation about promising careers in financial planning. In addition to this, there is a huge opportunity to bring career influencers into the fold. Educating teachers and guidance counselors about the diversity of roles in wealth management and financial planning is key to solving our talent shortage, and one of the goals of Diversitas is to include them. To learn more, you can read the full story here.