Introducing The Vested Network: Fixing Wealth Management Hiring with Co-Founders Jill Barnett, Claire Vitale & Shelby Nicholl

In this special episode, Shelby steps out from behind the interviewer's chair to talk about a company she just launched. The Vested Network is the first wealth management-specific talent marketplace, built to solve a problem Shelby, Jill Barnett, and Claire Vitale had each been watching play out for years: great firms and great talent that simply weren't finding each other.

Jill brings nearly two decades of experience in HR and M&A integration consulting for financial advisors. Claire built CMC Recruiting into a firm that places roughly 100 candidates a year in wealth management, talking to thousands of applicants annually. Together with Shelby, they built a platform designed to do what generic job boards can't: surface real fit, real culture, and real opportunity, specifically for this industry.

The conversation covers why hiring in wealth management carries so much emotional weight, what separates a great hire from one that merely fills a seat, why so many firm profiles sound identical, and why small RIAs and solo practices deserve the same visibility as the big names. They also share what's free right now for firms and candidates testing the platform, and where they see The Vested Network heading next.

This episode is part conversation, part announcement — and entirely worth your time if you're hiring, job hunting, or just curious how this industry connects its people.

Topics covered:

• Claire and Jill's paths into wealth management recruiting and HR consulting
• Why the hiring process in this industry carries unique emotional stakes
• The true cost of a bad hire: client experience and operational slowdown
• Why "the magic is in the little things" when it comes to culture and fit
• The most underrated hire in wealth management, according to Claire
• How small firms get equal visibility to large aggregators on the platform
• What's free right now: unlimited postings, talent profiles, and partner badges
• Where The Vested Network is headed: mentorship, study groups, and tactical hiring resources
• Lightning round: what firms get wrong, what candidates underestimate, and living off script

Hosted by Shelby Nicholl. Produced and edited by Aaron Sherman. Operations and Guest Coordination by Shelly Hadel.

Transcript

Shelby Nicholl (01:27)
Welcome, Jill and Claire. Thanks for joining us today.

Jill Barnett (01:30)
So excited to be here.

Shelby Nicholl (01:32)
Well, so excited to have you both. I want to start off as I almost always do with a little bit of your all story so that our listeners can get to know the two of you. so you know, Claire, you brought our our crew together on this effort, which is fantastic. Tell us a little bit about you and your journey in the industry.

Claire M. Vitale (01:33)
.

You

Yeah, started as a bright-eyed recruiter at Northwestern Mutual at 21 years old. So learned very quickly how to hunt. How to hunt, hunt, Cold call. Nothing was stopping me from getting the people in the door. Fast forward over the course of my tenure there, and I did spend a full 10 years at Northwestern, both at the corporate office and in the field. And I really wanted to do something on my own.

know 10 years of recruiting entrepreneurs I thought man I just want I want to have my own business. grew up with a father that had a business and so started a consulting business did a lot of training of recruiters training how to recruit and just over time we really became CMC recruiting which is specifically really what we do is recruit staff for wealth management firms. That is our specialty.

My team's got 75 plus years combined experience doing it, and we absolutely love it. So we place about 100 people a year in the industry. We talk to about 5,000 to 6,000 candidates a year, too, to get those people placed. So there's just so much volume out there, which is where some of this conversation happened.

Shelby Nicholl (03:13)
Fantastic. So Jill, tell us your story.

Jill Barnett (03:16)
Yeah, absolutely. So I have been in financial service for gosh nearly two decades. my path has been kind of interesting in the way that I started kind of in community banking, kind of went to payment processing, and then found my way to wealth management. And there's been kind of two main through lines that have been part of my career, and that's been HR has been an element of that and

MA integration. And so through kind of corporate, I had some really wonderful experiences and I found that you know working directly with financial advisors and their their businesses was a huge passion point for me. And so I I run a consulting firm today that primarily works with financial advisors and their businesses on everything related to people. So think about hiring, think about how you're organizing your team, think about how you're building for the future and how you're serving clients.

and a big conversation has been, where do I find the talent? How do I get them in the door? And on the flip side of that, there's amazing talent out there who's also having conversations about what they want to do with their career. And so this amazing, you know, opportunity came up and it's been just an absolute privilege working with the two of you on the vested network.

Shelby Nicholl (04:30)
It has been such a privilege. Yeah, it is. It is. Cause we were all seeing the same problem. We were seeing great talent and we were seeing great firms and they weren't finding each other.

Claire M. Vitale (04:31)
been so serendipitous. So crazy.

we've just seen this uptick over the last couple years of these incredible candidates. And there's just, there's an opportunity to connect them with these firms that are hiring, even if they're not hiring officially, or they are just putting feelers out there. Truly building a network was a dream.

Shelby Nicholl (05:03)
Yeah, I I agree with you. And what I think is interesting there is this idea of people kind of putting feelers out. There is a lot of fear with any time that you're gonna make a change and change roles. You know, in some industries, it is expected. I might be a nurse for one hospital and I'm gonna go work as a nurse for another hospital. In our industry, I'm sure that comes with all kinds of, you know, feels also, but I think in our industry there's all this like client also.

element. I'm gonna have to leave this set of clients to go work with a new set of clients and I'm gonna miss these people. Or the advisors are afraid that their CSAs are going to somehow take the clients with them or things like that also. So there's just a lot of emotion in the hiring process here. And it seems as if to me that there is just this really nebulous fit component that is really hard for people to nail down.

Claire M. Vitale (05:50)
Ahem.

Yeah.

Jill Barnett (06:01)
I agree. And I think in this industry, right, when you're in a relationship industry, one of the biggest drivers that we have is a sense of belonging. And so what sits at the bottom of that, both for companies and for talent, is how do I find my home? And how do I help make sure I'm either getting the right information and or asking the right questions to assess that? And it's really hard in today's environment to be able to get that information and find that place that we want to be belonging.

Shelby Nicholl (06:31)
That's such a strong statement. Do you feel like also that the hunt for talent and and Claire, you're you're probably one to really comment on this too, because you're seeing it in the trenches of your work every day. But it feels like to me that the hunt for talent is getting I don't know, harder or, you know, that talent is more the talent is more rare and talent is in the driver's seat. And firms have to tell a different story in order to attract their talent.

Claire M. Vitale (06:58)
Yes, absolutely. They have to tell a different story, be really convicted about that story, and need to live that story. I mean, because they could say whatever they want, but selection process and, you know, to retain people, you've got to really stick to that story too. And then the other thing is just at a very tactical perspective, we message

tens of thousands of candidates every year on LinkedIn, which is a great network. And we're very lucky to have a very good response rate statistically. And we've had to pivot over and over and over again to keep those rates up. And it's because candidates are being bombarded by offshore companies. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they're being bombarded with so many.

recruiters that are just in it for a volume, volume, volume, and so they don't know who's real. So from a recruiting firm perspective, something just constantly needs to change there and having an industry specific job board with the talent profiles included is, again, it's a dream. And again, something needed to shift, just something needed to shift.

Shelby Nicholl (08:21)
Yeah, I think that's super interesting too because the numbers, right? So I did a little research ahead of this episode and and such. And if you were hiring a client service associate today on LinkedIn, there's over 117,000 listings for client service associate. There's 20,000 listings for financial planner. And some of those financial planner roles are are really like corporate financial planning and analysis roles or

You could also say paraplanner, but if you get into paraplanning, then we might end up in the social work field with some of those paras and those paratherapists. So it's really interesting too, just like as a candidate, thinking about wading through all of that. It's almost like you have to know, hey, I want to talk to company A, B, and C, which is kind of the old school way of Googling like job opportunities, right? And saying, gosh, I want to work for this company or that company.

Claire M. Vitale (09:03)
Yep.

Shelby Nicholl (09:15)
It's it's just a very inefficient system today.

Claire M. Vitale (09:19)
Yeah, and how many times do we hear candidates say, well, I applied to that job and I feel like I was well qualified, but I didn't hear back or I didn't whatever it may be. And the reality is if you're getting, just like you said, if you're getting...

Person who is not used to recruiting is getting 500, 600 applicants and doesn't have the tools or wherewithal to be able to actually go in and filter those candidates. I mean, you almost have to have like a LinkedIn degree sometimes or like an Indeed degree to be able to go actually search for without reading every single resume to actually search for who you're looking for out of the 600. That makes it really hard to stand out. Like how do you stand out?

And I know that's one of the things we built into this platform too.

Shelby Nicholl (10:10)
Yes.

Yeah, well let's let's talk about that a little bit. And I think Jill, it goes to your comment earlier where you said this is such a relationship business. And you know, what we tried to build was something that wasn't just a job board, although it definitely serves that purpose as well, but we really tried to build something that was about the relationship also. You know, when you think, Jill, from your standpoint of of consulting with these firms and you think about them making the wrong hire, like what is a bad hire?

actually cost a wealth management firm.

Jill Barnett (10:45)
Yeah, I think there's kind of two things that kind of come to mind. And I think the first will probably catch everyone's kind of ear a little bit, right? And that's that client experience. A bad hire will impact your client experience, right? Whether it's a phone call in just to make a money movement or update their beneficiaries, and that person on the other side isn't trained or providing the level of care or or thoughtfulness, you know, that can directly impact your client experience. secondarily to that, I mean, when we make a bad

hire

whether it's fit, whether it's skill or will.

you know, that does pull away from the team and the resources that are are currently doing the work today. And so anytime I'm talking with, you know, financial advisors and their teams about, okay, what is it that we're looking to hire, we really get into okay, what does the skill look like? What does the knowledge look like? what does the person's approach to work kind of look like? because at the end of the day, fit matters just as much as some of the skill and the impact can be

pretty significant. So spending the time up front, really being thoughtful about okay, what are the trade-offs? Right? If I hire someone with high amount of background and and good skill, maybe the the training might be a little lower. If I want to go with someone maybe a little bit earlier career or newer to the industry, I have to know what my trade-offs are. and so a a bad hire can have an impact on not only our our client experience, but it can

really impact our our our operations. and it could slow down the team at a time when most likely you can't afford to to slow down.

Claire M. Vitale (12:22)
I think about a low risk way to start looking for somebody.

It's a pretty low risk way to start actually putting a job posting out there, starting to look at talent profiles so that you don't get in a bind like Jill was talking about because so many of the people listening and so many of our clients and so many of our friends in the industry wait until they need the person or they needed the person a month ago to actually start the ball rolling on hiring. And then you're almost in this place of

Shelby Nicholl (12:30)
Yeah.

Claire M. Vitale (12:57)
panic so you're like that person looks good enough so we're gonna hire them and then it can set set on this whole sequence of okay events like the person might be fine but it might take them a long time to get up to speed to Jill's point so

Shelby Nicholl (13:01)
Yes.

Yeah, so well let's talk about the opposite side. Like when a hire is great, what does that look and feel like?

Jill Barnett (13:22)
Yeah, I think when a when you have someone that you that's a good fit, they're coming in and they have that kind of service heart and that mentality, I think the immediate probably feel that a business owner or advisor has is almost like relief of like, they're able to take that amount of work. I can see where they're able to add value. I can see where they can actually take the

be someone who, you picks up the torch and carries it, right? Because at some point in time it needs the whole team needs to be able to ebb and flow. There's someone who's leading the charge, then someone else kind of picks up the the torch there. And so on the flip side, a good hire is someone who comes in and can be a great contributor, can be a good fit for the team itself. And

adds to the client experience. They get excited and they get energy from talking to the clients or they get excited by solving the problems. I think a lot of the work that happens in today's, you know, work world is really just comes down to the variability and it's complex. And so to be able to think on your toes and I think a great hire can add to your culture in that way versus being, you know, a little bit more on your heels.

Shelby Nicholl (14:27)
So, you know, one of the things that I've noticed is that we have a lot of sameness in the industry. And we have firms who all say, I do comprehensive planning. I am a a fiduciary. I our firm is the best at client service. You can expect, you know, first class customer service, things like that. Right. And they're there's these words and they do have meaning.

But they feel very same. And yet I feel like a lot of times the magic in the right hire is in these like tiny little details. You know, I can think about a practice in the Northeast who they're really into personal development. And, you know, the the founder is listening to a podcast and doing manifestation and just all of this stuff to continually get better. And that gives me a different picture of who to match with them.

How do you guys think about that? Is is the magic in the little stuff? Is it in the big stuff? Is it both? How do we think about that?

Claire M. Vitale (15:27)
The magic is absolutely in the little. I think, like I was saying, the big things that you communicate are really important, right? We want to hear the buzzwords and we want to make sure that you're following through with those buzzwords too, right? We have a great culture. Amazing.

Does that mean that we have happy hours every day? Does it mean that we have a ping pong table? Does it mean that we have high accountability? Does it mean that we have really high emotional intelligence to have conflict resolution? Does it mean that we send thank you notes to every single client that meets with us, whether they do work with us? There's so many ways that you relate those buzzwords, those values, whatever it is that you're talking about, being able to...

truly demonstrate those, whether it's in a conversation, in an initial conversation with a candidate, or if it's how you describe your company in an online platform. You know, in some examples I was thinking about as you were talking was, gosh, if I was looking at a firm profile, wherever I was looking at it, I might be looking for community involvement.

That's just where my heart is. I like to be of service, right? To me, it's important that I'm in an environment with like-minded people. So am I looking for potentially, if I'm looking at a company, I'm gonna be like, gosh, community service is one thing, but I wanna know what community service means to them. It means that we take one day a month off to go spend time in our community. We donate.

5 % of our profits every year to, and we split it amongst the charities of everybody's choice on the team. Like those things matter so much and they matter again, even more than just the buzzwords. They really make firms stand apart from others that say all the things. Everybody could say they have community service.

Everybody could say that they're fiduciaries, they should be, all of those things, but actually doing it and putting examples to it makes such a big difference.

Jill Barnett (17:50)
To build on that, there's always two questions that I ask my financial advisors and my groups that I work with. It's what's the employee experience? So if I'm part of your team and I'm sitting in the seat today, what do I hear? What do I see? What do I feel?

Like what does that employee experience look like? And I think Claire, to your point, it draws out some of those those nuance points that really heighten and be specific to that culture. So what is the employee experience? Can be one of those really great questions that help you get to what makes us special? What helps helps us stand out amongst those that say, hey, we're comprehensive planning. We care about our clients. How? Answer the question of how. How do you care for your clients?

Claire M. Vitale (18:24)
Mm-hmm.

Jill Barnett (18:36)
How do you run your business? And if you can have two or three bullet points that speak to the how, that's what's going to resonate with individuals. And that gets back to our earlier point about belonging. What you want people to say is this is somewhere where I can be for a long time doing the work that I want to be doing. And so kind of thinking about it the through the lens of what's the employee experience will help you stand out amongst can amongst amongst firms.

Shelby Nicholl (18:36)
Yeah.

I really like that a lot. And I think that's something that, you know, certainly in big corporate, we talked about employee experience. We talked about also the hiring experience and the hiring process, you know, and and planning that out ahead of time. I think I wanna I wanna shift gears just a little bit and and at least talk about what did we actually build with the vested network. And, you know, for the listeners, the vested network is the first wealth management specific marketplace of talent.

Claire M. Vitale (19:25)
Yeah.

Shelby Nicholl (19:35)
And it is intended to match up talent and firms. So talent can create profiles, firms can create profiles, and you can find each other in a more kind of maybe fulsome way, a little bit more than just a job description. We really want firms to put into their profile their story. What is their employee experience? How are they, how are you displaying your client service?

How what are some of the things that really make you special so that the candidates, the job seekers in this case, can really see and people in the industry generally can see who you are, what you stand for, and they can know is this a firm I want to be part of or not at some point in the future? Is this one I wanna keep watching? Is this one that I am, you know, my heart is attracted to join and, you know, I wanna be part of their growth story. That's what we want to get.

to happen with the vested network.

Jill Barnett (20:34)
Yeah, I think the one thing that I'm really passionate about is empowering individuals. So whether those are professionals, right, who are trying to find their next thoughtful step and having a little bit of the moment of like the now what. I mean, I'm sure all all three of us have had that moment in our career where we're sitting there and we're like, Well, now what?

Is this something that I chose or is this a path that somehow developed into something, you know, that I didn't necessarily choose for myself? So I think empowering individuals and I think on the flip side of that, what I'm really excited about is the the access that it gives to firms of all sizes, of all different areas of the business. Where right sometimes we see some of the bigger access to some of the bigger firms, the well-known names, which is fantastic. And this gives almost equal footing to to those smaller firms who also

are seeking just as great talent and have just as great as opportunities. And so in a way it creates a little bit more of an open environment that's a little bit more inclusive. but empowering both talent and firms, which I think is kind of magical when you can have a platform that can empower both sides, that there's a win-win.

Claire M. Vitale (21:42)
Yeah, it's so funny. So when I've been talking to people in this industry about what we built here, the first response is, my gosh, I've thought about that and I'm so happy you ladies did it. Like that's number one. Second, and I'm not joking about that. Second is, so like specifically for my business, right? The second question is always, well, what do you mean? That's gonna be a direct competition.

to what CMC recruiting does. And it's not. It is very much a compliment to it. Again, to Jill's point, are so many firms hiring. To Shobhi's point, are tens of thousands of jobs out there, some actually relevant to wealth management, some not. One firm...

cannot, we can't handle, there's just no way I want to be big enough to handle all that. But also there's firms that just don't want to work with a recruiter or they have an internal team that they want this, that person to be on this platform or they simply just can't afford to work with a recruiter who's actually going to go hunt for them, right? So this allows just this bigger access. I, for anybody that knows me, I live in a

extremely abundant space like extreme and if you don't know me I'm telling you I'm very very abundant and that's really what this platform is and why we built it. So firms at all levels can hire on there if you want to try it on your own first before engaging with a recruiter whether it's us or somebody else try it that way. If you're a candidate who's

starting to shop around but does not want a public profile but still wants to go check out companies and apply to jobs but in a confidential way. There's so many ways to connect this incredible talent to these firms and again from an abundance perspective why not just why not.

Shelby Nicholl (23:52)
You know, one of the things I think is really interesting and and Jill, you you talked a little bit about it is is this match between the firms and the and the candidates, but also that we wanted to create a space where small companies, you know, solo practices, small practices could really be featured in the same way that a large practice could. And I think that's one of the things that we did, even in the pricing of how of how the vested network works.

is you can be a featured company at any size with even just a single job posting. And that was such an intentional conversation amongst the three of us that we really wanted the the small practices that we all know, and small being in numbers of people often, you know, the independent shops, we really wanted them to be able to have that same visibility as an aggregator or large firm.

Jill Barnett (24:43)
agree and I think that's been really an intentional conversation that we've been having and making sure that we're being very inclusive and very open with this network.

Shelby Nicholl (24:53)
Yeah, I think the other piece that we also want want in in this, and and I'm thinking a little bit more like kind of down the road, right? Because we've launched what I consider, and I think what all three of us would consider is kind of the V one of the vested network. And by the way, everybody, it's the vested V-E-S-T-E-D network.com, the vested network. we we launched it in sort of a V one and and test and learn kind of an approach.

But one of the things I I know that we're all really excited about is also to share some of what we see from a resource standpoint for with people. Things like how to build your LinkedIn presence and make that great, how to how to build a form profile inside of the vested network. And by the way, you can take that same content and take it over to LinkedIn too. But a little bit more of that how-to and and what we're seeing sort of trending in the industry. I'm really excited about some of those resources for practices, how to interview well.

How to be a good interviewee, a good candidate in the interview, those kinds of of things. What are you guys really excited about as you think about this the platform and kind of where we see it going in the future?

Jill Barnett (26:02)
I think there's two things that kind of come to mind. one is yes, providing those additional resources, right? Those things that help empower both, you know, professionals in their career journey, navigating some of those those milestones. And then also on the company side. So I think that's a tremendous value for both professionals.

both audiences, where I can kind of see this platform evolving to is allowing for this to to continue to evolve to be more of a network, right? Tapping into the community, which is wealth management. You know, in my mind, I'm I'm I love being people centric. I know there's a huge need out there for like say a mentor program. And so thinking about where this platform could potentially evolve and capturing and leveraging the amazing talent that's out there. Things like study groups, right? If you have the

talent that's part of this network, there's a lot of amazing things that can happen when people come together. And I think that's what's going to be really beautiful about this platform is the ability for it to evolve over time to meet the needs of the industry and where it's going.

Claire M. Vitale (27:05)
Absolutely. So I'm going to speak long term and what I see, but I also want to bring it back to the short term and what I'm really excited about too. So long term, absolutely the resources. Like I even think about how to best build a job description and doing some, I again, in an abundant mentality, I'm happy to even record.

be sourcing like, this is how I would source on the vested network. This is how I would source on LinkedIn, right? How can this be a very, very tactical place for people to go when they're looking for talent or if they're talent looking for opportunities, both confidentially and not confidentially. So that's long term. I also am manifesting and really thinking about clients.

reaching out saying, my gosh, I have never found such great talent and so much easier than I've ever found it before. Like I cannot wait for those conversations and for candidates to say, I'm six months into this company, I found them on the vested network. I would have never known about them without being on the network. Like that to me would be, that would just be incredible.

Now, that's long term, and that could happen short term, but that's my long term dream. The short term that I'm so excited about is right now a network is only as strong as the actual network, right? So you'll see on there, especially if you're a company, you'll see the pricing page. Well, on the pricing page, did, we created a section or an offering that

you do get one free post and you do get five talent profiles for right now. We're thinking that will probably end end of July is the date that we have in our head. We might extend, we might not. But what I'm really excited about is right now there is actually no risk. We don't ask for your credit card, we don't do any of those things. I mean genuinely there's no risk to building a profile, both if you're a candidate or your company.

Shelby Nicholl (29:14)
Mm-hmm.

Claire M. Vitale (29:23)
Candidates, you don't want to be public on there. Just click. I'm not open to, I'm not available to, or uncheck, I guess, available to work. So there's no risk to doing it. There's no risk to testing it out. And to me, that is so exciting. My company, we have a few of our job postings up. We've gotten some great candidates so far on it. So it just makes me excited.

that more companies are going to feel that same, like, my gosh, I got my first one from the Vested Network, how cool. And it click in it. And actually, the actual example is somebody applied, we've had multiple applications to our jobs, but somebody applied actually this morning. And I looked at her profile and I was like, my gosh, she would be perfect for a different role that I don't actually even have on the Vested Network. So it also pinged like a, maybe I should put all my roles.

on the Vesta Network. just didn't overall want to overwhelm with number of roles on there from our companies. So, but I'm excited about all of it.

Shelby Nicholl (30:18)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, I am too. I think there's always this this wonderful magic. I f I feel like a lot of my purpose is around helping others achieve their dreams, whatever that might be, their goals in life. And so it's listening to them, figuring out what they need and helping them get there with a plan and a vision, et cetera. It's what we do in our consulting business and it's just core to to what I've done my whole life. And

Jill Barnett (30:26)
That's exciting.

Shelby Nicholl (30:50)
I just think this ability for later on for people to be able to go, gosh, I would never have known it except for the vested network. I think that is so cool. I just love that. I want to talk about a couple of trends that we're also seeing in the industry. one of them, and and Jill, I want to turn to you on this one first, is this idea of fractional support and fractional team members versus full-time team members.

This is something I deploy in my own business. I have multiple fractional people. I also have some full-time people on our team as well. but I think it's it's it's a it's a trend and it's it really has shifted the landscape of hiring. what do you, what are you seeing, Jill, from a fractional standpoint? How do you guide people in deciding should this be a fractional role or a full-time role?

Jill Barnett (31:40)
Yeah, I think I think there is definitely a rise of the fractional work model and what that looks like. I think, you know, traditionally we've been deciding, okay, am I gonna hire a ten ninety-nine contractor, right? 'Cause that's a path. Am I going to hire a W two individual? And now we have this like third option in a way, which is this fractional level of expertise that we can bring into our business. And and a lot of those conversations are around, okay, what level of knowledge do we need in our business?

A lot of times the fractional work is gonna more default to those those types of roles or responsibilities that might be like accounting, for example, a fractional CFO, a fractional marketing individual. And so some of those core business services do lend itself really well to that fractional space. We also see some firms deploying fractional assistance, right, in their practices. I think when I'm having conversations with advisors and their practices.

I'm really having a conversation about which roles are interacting with clients. In my view, in my recommendation, is we we keep W-2 roles who are working with clients. I think that's where you have the relationship and that's where you would be investing in your headcount and your continuity. You can leverage fractional individuals, either short-term or long term, to fill some of the more of these strategic type needs or project type needs.

I think the other thing that's playing into this is that there are some exceptional talented individuals out in the marketplace right now who might not be looking for a full-time W-2 role. They might be coming off of a 20, 30 year amazing career in corporate and they're sitting there saying, Now what? Where can I take my knowledge and my skills? Maybe I only want to work 20 hours a month. Maybe I want to be a little bit more flexible.

And so leveraging a fractional resource in your business allows you to to leverage the experience and the knowledge, but at a at a rate, at an expense level that fits your business. And it creates a win win for both the business owner and and for talent.

Shelby Nicholl (33:53)
I think that's such an important trend that we're seeing. And and Claire, another one that I want to talk about is around compensation. what happens when we're working with some of our clients is we see they want a CFP and 20 years of experience of making this up, being a little bit wide out there for for play.

But they want twenty years of experience in a CFP and all these accreditations, and then they want to pay sixty five thousand dollars. Tell me what we should be thinking about from a compensation standpoint and what resources might be out there that advisors could and should tap into.

Claire M. Vitale (34:30)
Yeah. my gosh, your example is not actually not that far off to be honest. So 65 is a little low, some people I have people where I'm doing, you know, market analysis for and will do. They'll say 20 years CFP. want them to be able to walk in and have credibility immediately with clients, et cetera, et cetera. They don't need to bring in their own clients. That's a, that's a big differentiating factor. They don't need to bring in their own clients.

Shelby Nicholl (34:56)
Mm.

Claire M. Vitale (35:00)
we're gonna pay 95 base and they can make 150 total. We're in some place where the cost of living is lower. No, that just doesn't, that's just, that doesn't match. We are not seeing any CFP taking less than, even entertaining a base less than probably 110, 125 right now. And.

There's a lot of resources out there. There's a lot of factors to think about too. So again, is this person bringing in business? Because you do have a little bit more wiggle room if, if the person is bringing in business, let's say it's 75 % client relationships, 25 % bringing in business, you could have a decent base with some great upside.

If it's 50-50, you could lower the base even more, but you could even have a way higher, you know, maybe a 100k base, but maybe 250-300 overall comp. But if they don't need to bring in clients, you can have it lower. My point is there's a lot of intentionality around your compensation. I just recorded a podcast yesterday with our friends at Simplicity Ops and

the was compensation is not the only thing and it's true. mean the number the compensation is important but there's levers that you can pull to make it more attractive. So for example it is it is okay to offer a little bit less or people are taking a little bit less for flexibility but if you're

full time in office and you're offering a low base salary, that's not going to be attractive to somebody. If there's no clarity on where their career path's going, if they're going to take that risk, you're probably going to need to pay more. So there's just so many factors that fall into compensation. Overall resources, we have a compensation study that I'll actually put in the resources section, I absolutely can on the vested network.

I know Schwab has their data. I do find that that's a couple years outdated normally, but I could be wrong. And then companies like ClientWise, they'll put things out there too.

Shelby Nicholl (37:32)
Yeah. And I think also, you know, people can tap into, you know, recruiting firms a little bit as well. Tap into your friends, what have they been offering and and hiring? Like have a really open conversation about money. You know, especially I find candidates may not be doing this, but we all really should. It benefits the candidates, it benefits the firm because you don't want to go down the whole path with a candidate and then find out that you're completely misaligned when it comes to.

Claire M. Vitale (37:47)
Yes.

Shelby Nicholl (38:01)
А компенсацін не

Claire M. Vitale (38:03)
One thing that I just wanna make sure that I'm very clear about is that the compensation has to match the job description.

Shelby Nicholl (38:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Claire M. Vitale (38:12)
So when

you're building the job description, if you have a budget in mind of that person's salary, it needs to match. If you're paying 75, that person's not gonna be a senior level person, period. No matter if they're credentialed or not. They could be an associate, they could even maybe be a senior associate. But the work needs to match, the actual work needs to match the title, which needs to match the job description.

Shelby Nicholl (38:39)
Yeah. And I definitely, you know, most of our clients will say I'm very generous with my staff. And when I ask them what that means, I generally find that they are. And their staff has been with them a long time. The clients love them. Like investing in your staff is such a growth lever for your overall business. It is an economic generator that we should not it's it's not a place to go cheap. There's lots of things that you can cheap out on staff.

Claire M. Vitale (38:48)
Yes.

Shelby Nicholl (39:08)
And branding are my two hot buttons personally. Those are the things we do not cheap out on. Yeah.

Jill Barnett (39:14)
One thing

that I'll just add to close this whole out, I think you guys touched on this is taking a holistic role or a holistic view, right, at all the roles. And you guys touched on this, right? Understanding how those roles tie into market data, right? It's okay to make independent decisions for each role. Am I gonna be at market? Am I gonna be lower than market? Am I gonna pay a premium? Right? Have an intentionality though around your compensation structure for each role.

and how that impacts your business. There will always be trade-offs to your point. If you're gonna hire someone a little bit lower of a comp who's gonna require a little bit more training, that is a trade-off. So tie your compensation and your role to market data and understand the trade-offs. If you go this path, what's the what's gonna be the trade-off? And that's what's gonna set you up for success.

Shelby Nicholl (40:01)
That's a

I think that's such an important comment. It also makes me think about the firm profiles. And Claire, you kind of hit on this as well when you talked about you can maybe pay a little bit less if you're going to have a higher flexibility role, like a hybrid role. I'm gonna work two days a week at home and three days a week in the office. I as a person or the candidates are seem to be a little bit willing to take a slight cut on pay in order to have a more flexible workplace.

If you believe in a flexible workplace and that is something that you and your team are dedicated to, make sure you reference that in your profile, whether it's at Vested Network or it's at LinkedIn, it's part of your employee experience. So we really want to highlight those things because those are the little details that will really make you stand out. And just because you put hybrid on there, you're not giving people the permission to not work at home, right? You're just saying for good workers.

Claire M. Vitale (40:42)
Yes.

Shelby Nicholl (41:02)
We're still gonna keep our expectations high. We're still going to have really wonderful contributors and expect that of them, but we're gonna give them the gift of that flexibility at the same time.

Jill Barnett (41:15)
I like that.

Claire M. Vitale (41:15)
Another

one that falls into that category is tenure of your team. I know we've talked about it on, in this conversation, but adding that to either your profile or on LinkedIn, mean, my goodness, I would absolutely be more inclined to go to affirm that the 10 years, five, 10 years versus one that doesn't mention it. Cause that means it's probably not great.

Shelby Nicholl (41:38)
has a lot of turnover. Yeah.

Yeah. It's an indicator if you don't mention it. That's a really great point. You know, before we wrap up, I want to talk also about the founding partner opportunity. This is something that, you know, the vested network officially launched, I think what was it like 10 days ago, ladies? I think that we like sent out the LinkedIn message roughly 10 days ago. And the response to it has just been fantastic. We've been having lots of one on one conversations as well.

Claire M. Vitale (41:54)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Shelby Nicholl (42:05)
But we are share holding some spots for podcast listeners as founding partners. And so if you would like to be a founding partner of the Vested Network, it enables you to go ahead and set up a profile. You can have a couple of months for free. You can post some roles, really get some experience in it. What we're asking of you in return is that one, we can we can feature you and feature your firm, which is fantastic, but also that you share with us what you think because we want to continue to make this.

platform better. And we all come from a product of test and learn. And you know, you, you, you listeners know me and how much I love my data and my research. And so I want some feedback along the way from these folks. but absolutely looking for free unlimited postings for the first several months, partner badges on your profile, et cetera. We'd love to be able to feature you and your and your firm. So please do reach out to any of the three of us and we can get you set up with that.

All right, ladies, I always like to end the podcast with a little bit of a lightning round. I'll go kind of back and forth. So, Jill, what is one thing that wealth management firms get wrong about hiring?

Jill Barnett (43:17)
not highlighting who they are as a firm. How does it feel to work there? Yeah. I want to know how it feels to sit in the seat.

Shelby Nicholl (43:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Like just not telling their story. Yeah.

Yeah. And Claire, what is a role that you think is like kind of chronically undervalued at many firms and really shouldn't be? And you see it as just such a an unlock for a firm?

Claire M. Vitale (43:37)
the executive assistant.

Shelby Nicholl (43:39)
interesting. I did not expect that answer. Really? Okay.

Claire M. Vitale (43:41)
hands down. well

you all know that my executive assistant who started with me six and a half years ago, almost seven years ago now, I mean now she's the COO, but still serves kind of both capacities. I mean she can run the business. If I need to go out for foster care, whatever it is is going on in life, nobody knows.

Shelby Nicholl (44:07)
Yeah, yeah. What is one thing that you wish principals or firm owners would do before they would post their next role? Jill, you would be a perfect answer or for this.

Jill Barnett (44:19)
I would have them make sure their job title resonates with candidates. Think about it through the lens of the applicant seeker. Will my job pull up in their search and be on top of their mind?

Shelby Nicholl (44:29)
Yes.

Yes. Okay. Is it how they think of themselves? And maybe does it meet their a little bit of it as an ego need as well, right? We all like to see progress in our careers. So how can we show that along the way?

Jill Barnett (44:46)
And sometimes we use

internal nomenclature that sometimes will lead people astray, if we post it using that internal jargon versus using something that might resonate more broadly.

Shelby Nicholl (44:57)
yes, makes sense. Okay, great. And Claire, what's something that candidates maybe underestimate about themselves?

Claire M. Vitale (45:07)
their value and how much they are interviewing the firm as well.

Shelby Nicholl (45:14)
Yeah, yeah. I agree with that. It's sometimes I feel like candidates need to just really look at it as a time to take agency, right? Like we do have agency over our lives and we should behave that way inside of interviews as well. In a nice way. We don't wanna be jerks, you won't get hired then, but we wanna make sure it's a fit for ourselves.

Claire M. Vitale (45:33)
Yeah, it's mutual. they are interviewing you, you're interviewing them, and it's okay that you say no. It's okay that you negotiate. It's okay. They're, they're ready for all that. So give yourself the permission to do that. Yeah.

Shelby Nicholl (45:44)
Yeah.

That's

wonderful. Great tip. all right. Our closing question, I'll ask it to both of you, is, you know, in honor of the name of the podcast, it's advisors off script. What is a way, Jill, that you are living an off script life right now?

Jill Barnett (46:01)
Who currently living off script, I'm being very present in life, meaning I am being very active enjoying the FIFA World Cup in town. And so my off script is just being very present in what's going on in my environment around me.

Shelby Nicholl (46:17)
that is that is a little off script, right? We can get so caught up with everything going on around us. That's wonderful. Claire, how about you?

Claire M. Vitale (46:25)
I feel like I just live in this off script life. Foster care is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about an off script life. It is a unique lifestyle, not lifestyle, but it's a unique choice for our family that comes with a lot of beautiful, beautiful moments and very, very hard ones. So that's my personal off script. My professional off script is...

Shelby Nicholl (46:36)
Yeah.

Claire M. Vitale (46:54)
starting another company and I'm loving it. I just absolutely love it. So fun.

Shelby Nicholl (46:57)
Yeah. I am so

grateful to work with the two of you on this. And this has been such a fun partnership. And, you know, we went so quickly from first conversations to, you know, getting this out the door. And I just think it was because we were so aligned and we had seen this problem for so long before we came together.

Claire M. Vitale (47:02)
Yeah.

Shelby Nicholl (47:19)
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you both so much for being here. Really appreciate this. to our listeners, if you've ever posted a role and then be been design, you know, really disappointed by what came back, this episode and the vested network has been for you. And then candidates, if you've ever felt like you were invisible to the firm and that should have found you, this is for you. If you've ever looked at the tools available and said, we deserve better, this episode and the vested network is for you. It's now live.

Claire M. Vitale (47:19)
Absolutely.

Shelby Nicholl (47:48)
Go to the vested network, V-E-S-T-E-D network.com, and be among the first of the of the firms to enter the platform. I know this was a little bit of a commercial, guys, today, but really excited about what this means for candidates and for firms and for filling this industry void that Claire and Jill and myself have been seeing. So thank you for listening. Please subscribe, share this with a firm leader or colleague, and we'll see you next time on advisors off script.

Thanks, ladies.