Monday, July 24, 2006

Do you have what it takes to be a registered paraplanner?

Check out the free assessment tests and see how stumped you are. The test took me about 25 minutes and I got a 52%, which I think is pretty good considering I don't have a financial calculator and I have no idea what a lot of the specialized words they used were. You can also take assessments for a couple other specialized certifications.

I've been sort of maybe kind of kicking around the idea of getting the RP certification, and when Boyfriend and I are leaving the city anyway, to try and get an internship somewhere in the destination city to see if I actually like the financial planning world. It's not really as much of a leap as it seems for me - my most useful skills are being able to explain things simply to people, and also just being able to Freaking Figure Something Out, ie when you need something done, I will figure out a way to do it, by hook or by crook. And I am very patient. So I think these are skills that could be useful, but I don't want to invest a whole lot of time in finding out if it's a good fit because it might look strange if I decide I don't like it and go back to my original career in healthcare, having such a big gap between jobs. The RP designation requires 3 months of field experience, while the CFP desigation is a) much harder to get b) much more expensive c) requires three YEARS of field experience before you actually get the designation.

So, I don't know. It's something to think about. And at the very least I would be a resource for family and friends, like a paralegal is for terrible legal advice. =)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am going for my CFP currently, let me know if you have any questions.

Kira said...

Thanks.. I guess the most important one is, can I turn back time and get my degree in something more useful... ;)

mOOm said...

Doing this RP thing seems to make sense as a first step and if you like it you can continue to do the full CFP or even a masters degree in something depending on what makes sense for your goals.

I tried the first ten questions on the RP quiz and got 9/10.

A lot of people, most people first train in one thing and then go onto a another so that's not a problem. Being interdisciplinary - able to integrate together insight from different fields is even better. I think you mentioned you were in healthcare. Well maybe eventually you could look to recruit clients in that field if you went down the CFP direction....