Associate Advisor

Overview

  • W-2 position
  • Hours: Full-time, 40 hours/week. 9-5:30 west coast hours
  • Location: Virtual but we prefer you be in Southern California (for quarterly in-person team meetings)
  • Compensation: $60k/year, annual team bonus, 401(k) matching, health insurance, professional development budget
  • Vacation policy 
  • Start Date: As soon as possible

At Stone Steps, through financial life management, we help clients, mostly mid to late career families in tech and biotech, align money with life. This frees up their time allowing them to enjoy what matters most. We show them where they are, help them gain clarity about where they want to go, and lay out the next steps to help them get there as quickly as possible.

We believe that IQ + EQ = Real Financial Planning.  This essentially means that we blend our technical skills with life planning and technology to serve our clients and help them live their best lives.  

We are excited about the future of Stone Steps, the families we serve, and are ready to expand our team.  

 

About Stone Steps 

We are a fee-only, largely virtual firm.  Stone Steps serves clients from home or near your office space.  We work closely together to foster community among our team and our clients.  We do serious work but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.  We love that all three team members reside in Southern California so we can easily meet in person. 

OUR CORE VALUES (How we do what we do)

Listen Deeply & Speak with Care

We come to each conversation with an open mind rather than the “right answer.” We tell the whole truth to ourselves, our clients, and each other.

Serve

We care for our clients, our team, and our community while living our own great life.

Bring Genius & Lifelong Learning

We spend our time doing what we are best at and love most while striving to be and do better while striving to be and do better.

Enjoy!

We believe that our time with Stone Steps should be the best years of (y)our life.

 

We are ready to add to our team so we can expand our capacity and reach. Our focus is two-fold:

  1. Serve more mid to late career families in tech and biotech
  2. Diversify our team and welcome a new colleague to a gratifying career in financial planning

These two goals work hand-in-hand.  The more diversity of thought and experience we have in our firm, the more families in tech and biotech we can serve well, and the better we can advance the financial planning profession.  To us, this is a huge win-win!

To learn more about Stone Steps, visit our website.  To learn more about topics we work on with clients (and get a sense of how we work on them as well as how we communicate), listen to Scott on a few episodes of Real Personal Finance. To learn more about our team, read about us on the Team page. 

 

About You

Work experience: 0 – 4 years of experience in financial planning

Bachelor’s degree: (don’t care what it is in)

Demonstrable interest in the financial planning profession: You don’t have to have experience in financial planning, but you do have to be interested in the profession. We need you to show us that this is the career you want through a related degree, internships, CFP coursework, etc. You must be ready to deepen your interest as you learn and grow.

Communicate effectively and respectfully

Detail-oriented: There are a lot of spreadsheets, note taking, data entry, organization, detailed client communications, etc. in this role.  We value organization, reliable execution and quality work. 

Reflect on and articulate what you need: This work is most effective and enjoyable when we know what you need – and what you are not getting – to do the work well.  We encourage you to speak up. 

Generally tech-savvy: Specifically comfortable with Google Sheets.  We use technology, but no one is coding here. 

Willing to think regularly about how to improve … everything: We want every team member to regularly think about how we could improve our lives as well as our clients’ lives; language choices, software, how to make processes more effortless for clients etc. 

Live in Southern California: While we are largely a virtual firm, we appreciate being within driving distance of one another so we can meet in person and grow together as a team. 

 

About The Role

Your role as Associate Advisor is to learn how to become a Lead Advisor.

You will work with the founder of our firm, learning how they communicate with and provide value to clients across the full spectrum of the client relationship. 

Since Stone Steps is a small growing firm, your work will range from providing support for the founder (ex., entering data in software) to traditional apprenticeship (ex., sitting in meetings, taking notes and doing client work).

You will start sharing your voice publicly with the founder, via a new podcast we plan to launch in 2022. We want you to establish your own voice and, in doing so, broaden Stone Steps reach. 

Our goal is for you to move up to Lead Advisor in 1-3 years. At that time you will lead your own client relationships. It is our job to give you the exposure, training, and support you need to get there.  It is your job to want this career track and to actively seek out the learning you need to get there. And, of course, we want to have lots of fun along the way! 

This role is a career position.  As you grow into your role, and as you move from Associate Advisor to Lead Advisor, your role will expand as will your compensation.  

 

What You’ll Be Doing

Immediately:

  • Attend all new client meetings with the founder and take notes
  • After meetings, debrief with the founder and do the administrative follow-up work
  • Work with the founder to prepare for meetings and to do financial planning work between meetings
  • Spend time with our Client Service Associate (CSA), learning the administrative aspects of the business enabling you to help if a need arises while our CSA is out of office
  • Attend weekly team meetings and one-on-one meetings with the founder
  • Attend quarterly in-person meetings, typically in Encinitas, CA
  • Other responsibilities as assigned

Within First 6 Months:

  • Pass Series 65 exam if you don’t already have the CFP® designation (paid for by Stone Steps

Within First Year:

  • Start taking CFP® courses (paid by Stone Steps)
  • Take lead on some client work

Within First Two Years:

  • Take and pass all CFP® courses (paid by Stone Steps)
  • Take and pass the CFP® exam (paid by Stone Steps) 
    • Acquiring your CFP® designation is a requirement to being a Lead Advisor with Stone Steps. 
  • Lead more and more of the client relationship yourself

After 1 – 3 Years:

  • As a CFP® professional who has been leading client relationships, you will move up to Lead Advisor
  • Continue professional development

 

What We Are Offering

  • $60,000 / year salary – Higher compensation may be available for those further along in their Associate journey
  • Annual bonus based on firm metrics
  • 401(k): available with matching up to 4% after 6 months of employment
  • Health Insurance: Stone Steps pays 80% of employee premium and 50% of dependents
  • Professional Development Budget
    • Experience eligible for 2-year apprenticeship track for CFP® designation
  • Vacation policy – Unlimited Paid Time Off – Take if and when you need it as long as your job is getting done. 
  • A laptop with necessary accessories:
    • You will be expected to do Stone Steps work on Stone Steps hardware using Stone Steps software, for security’s sake and to ensure consistent process and service.
    • This will be shipped to you as soon as possible after hiring. It belongs to Stone Steps.

 

How To Apply

  • Please submit in email to: careers@stonestepsfinancial.com
    • Write “Application for Associate Advisor” in the subject line
    • Answers to these three questions in your email response:
      1. What draws you to financial planning?
      2. What about Stone Steps interests you?
      3. What do you want to learn most in this job?
  • A 3-minute (or less) Loom video link (free video service) answering ONE of the questions below:
    1. Tell us a bit about yourself. We like to know our clients’ stories, so we’d like to know yours as well.
    2. What is your superpower and how does it show up in your life?
    3. Tell us about a situation where you demonstrated courage.
    4. Share which of your skills or attributes do you think would benefit Stone Steps and its clients. Why and how?
  • Link to your LinkedIn profile (if you don’t have one, please send a resume)
  • Link to your Twitter account (if you have one)
  • (Optional) Anything else you think might help us understand the you-ness of you

 

What To Expect In The Application Process

Here’s how the application process will unfold.  

  1. Initial Application. We will not start reviewing applications until January 3rd and then on a rolling basis until we successfully hire our next team member. Candidates who submit their application by January 11th will be notified about next steps by January 31st. (We will reach out to you letting you know if we will be moving forward with your application.)
  2. Zoom call with Scott
  3. Zoom call with the rest of Stone Steps team
  4. Assessment test
  5. Extend an offer (More diligence if warranted) 

Thank you for your consideration!

EXPLORE MORE
Get blog posts sent to your email as soon as they are published!