#langcatlive in London is in full swing. And while several cats are distracted, back here in Port Authority, I’ve donned my gonzo disguise of Hunter S. Thomcat, broken out of my cage, taken over the controls and drunk too much coffee, all in time to deliver my first Update.
The focus in London today is New Blood: No Wrong Path, building on the work of our HomeGame 2025 event in Glasgow. As New Blood to financial services myself – what do I make of it all?
WHO THE HELL IS HENRI BERGSON?
Without getting too metaphysical, there’s multiple perspectives that might inform my view. I could travel back in time to the undergrad with Che Guevara on his wall, scaring him witless. I could look at it as someone who wouldn’t exist if two computer programmers from the West of Scotland hadn’t met at Scottish Widows on Dalkeith Road. Or as a trainee journalist who might have considered a PR role a little further in the future.
In truth, I look at things from all these perspectives and more. Failing to resist that metaphysical urge, I think that Henri Bergson was onto something when he talked about our experience of time possessing bits of the past, present and future. We’re a collection of our experiences.
My CV reads: “English and Music in Aberdeen, Multimedia Journalism in Glasgow, brief freelancing in West Lothian, then the lang cat”.
Some would diagnose this as a classic case of falling into financial services. In reality, all these experiences led to the realisation I wanted to write and learn within a secure environment. Although I could have seen multiple adverts for PR and comms roles, the lang cat spoke to me and made it clear they valued my range of perspectives, outlined how I could use them and indicated what I could do to develop more within the role. So here I am.
THE MYTH OF THE FALL
Back to the folks. Although part of a general exodus from working-class areas in West Scotland during the eighties, they took different paths.
My mum left school with a love of maths and organisation, took a college course in computer programming, spent a couple years at Glasgow District Council before Scottish Widows. My dad became the first in his family to go to university, completing a Masters in philosophy specialising in logic which eventually led to computer programming and Scottish Widows via Standard Life.
Their destination was the same, but the routes very different. And while they didn’t set out at the start to join financial services, you can’t simply say they “fell” into it. Like me, they both found a well-advertised opportunity that spoke to their individual skillsets and actively pursued it.
The notion that people fall into financial services is somewhere approaching a myth; it’s made up, like Santa and finfluencers, but beyond that it allows the industry to categorise its recruitment as passive. Then there’s a lot of head scratching when people aren’t queueing up to join the sector.
PARABLE OF PARAPLANNERS
Perhaps this acid trip of an Update can be understood more specifically through the plight of paraplanners. I’ve seen at least two stories in the past week claiming that paraplanning is all admin and spreadsheets, so leave it to AI.
Before the lang cat I had no idea what paraplanners do and reading through our latest SOTAN (released today), it appears lots of industry folk don’t have much of a clue either.
Over three years, SOTAN has asked paraplanners to score how well their role was understood by the industry on a scale of 1-10, and the best we managed as a sector was this wave with an average of 5.1. Not a great starting point for developing recruitment strategy, certainly a precarious point at which to assume AI will fill the gap.
SOTAN testimonies reveal the “staggering” number of times paraplanners must explain their roles or how frustrating it is to see their job advertised as a “stepping stone to advice”. Which gets to the heart of the issue; over half the paraplanners who took part in SOTAN want to develop their career from within paraplanning, only 13% saw themselves as future advisers/planners.
If the industry misdiagnoses why people sign up for what is a key role in the advice process, it cannot develop and advertise these roles in a way that will attract the best people for the job.
Whether it’s the route that led me to the lang cat or the way my folks found themselves as computer programmers, some people will always be proactive in their career. Throw out the notion people fall into financial services – be proactive, highlight what you can offer them, seek that which is above. We can’t just expect all the diverse and capable talent to fall into our jobs.
Today’s music choice is King Hannah – Somewhere Near El Paso. It’s epic, it’s Southern Ethereal, it’s trippy, Hunter S. Thomcat approves. What more do you want?
