Financial Advisor Jobs and Careers

As a financial advisor, your book of business is the most important thing you can show a prospective employer. But a stellar resume can also help your candidacy.

The book of business is invaluable for an FA applying for a job. But if you don't have one, your resume can still make you stand out. Here are some tips.

If you're a financial advisor planning on leaving your firm for another, it's important to keep in mind some rules to avoid getting sued.

As wirehouses have taken a beating over the last year, more clients are turning to independent financial advisers. Here are some tips at how to succeed with your own independent financial adviser business.

On August 23, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority will release a flood of old complaints and arbitration awards onto the records of U.S. stockbrokers. Brokers are scrambling to deal with the potential damage. There are three paths to redemption for a broker with a tarnished record: comment, dispute and expungement.

There's a lot that's appealing about being a financial advisor. You can make your own hours, work from anywhere, and take on as many or as little clients as you like. But with all its perks, too often folks stepping into the job are naïve about how much planning and work they need to do to succeed as an advisor.

While you may have impressive and varied accomplishments, knowing how to highlight them on your resume -- and, more importantly, which ones to highlight -- is key to landing a wealth management position, say experts.

The social-media site can be a great professional-development tool for financial advisers. Here is a list of Twitter feeds worth following when you're looking to gain an edge.

UBS Wealth Management Americas, a unit of UBS AG, recently hired a team of high-producing financial advisors from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

Barclays Wealth recently hired six investment representatives from its rivals, with the six having more than $26 million in combined annual production and managing more than $1.1 billion in client assets.

Bank of America Corp. will hire more than 500 advisors in its Merrill Edge unit by the end of the year, nearly doubling the count of employees that work with clients with smaller investment portfolios.

UBS Wealth Management Americas, a unit of UBS AG, recently hired a team of high-producing financial advisors from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch Wealth Management unit recently hired Matt Burton and John Cate, a team of financial advisors, from brokerage joint venture Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

UBS Wealth Management Americas, a unit of UBS AG, recently recruited 15 financial advisors from competitors, boosting its new hire total to 124 year-to-date, up 50% from a year ago, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Brokerage joint venture Morgan Stanley Smith Barney recently recruited four financial advisors from UBS Wealth Management Americas, a unit of UBS AG, and Ameriprise Financial Inc.

The Texas-based bank and insurer is hiring across two business lines.

Related: Becoming a Mortgage Loan Underwriter | Becoming a Financial Advisor

The Memphis, Tenn.-based firm is expanding further into the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

The giant retail brokerage is luring candidates from Wall Street once again and pondering a spate of new offices on the West Coast. It is also weighing plans to snap up some competitors.

Related: What It Takes to Work at Raymond James

Nearly three years later, the disastrous last months of 2008 are still propelling advisors to new firms.

Ron Meder came to be a financial advisor later in life, and only after being pushed out of another career. Now he wishes he'd made the move a lot earlier.

The next phase of the broker war is underway, according to a new report. This time around it's top producers looking for more pay, not disgruntled brokers fleeing a changing corporate culture.

Wells Fargo is close to settling a class-action gender-discrimination suit for $32 million.

Global wealth has increased 8% since 2008 and institutions are scrambling to find wealth managers who can accommodate their newly-minted clients.

Banks, brokerages and insurance companies -- including the wirehouses -- are filling call-centers with advisors in efforts to win low-income customers. The jobs are attractive to those tired of the eat-what-you-kill system of money management.

After two years of defections and intense hiring activity, the financial advisor market has settled down somewhat. Many firms in the market are still planning on hiring in 2011.

Related: How to Become a Financial Advisor

If you're a broker who's deciding whether to leave your firm or not, staying up to date on current lawsuits regarding deferred-compensation is a good idea.