Let me start off by saying that I went after the Financial Advisor position with Edward Jones with a great deal of passion and interest in pursuing this as a long-term career, I have a 4-year degree in Business and had a genuine connection with EJ personal approach as a business model.
I was first introduced to the hiring process through a couple of phone calls with some very friendly local employees who were eager to help me get in touch with the right person to start-off. So, the process begun:
1) Complete brief Online Profile to introduce you as a candidate
2) They e-mail you and ask you to complete an Online Application and lengthy 10-Year Work History Report in which they contact every employer that is listed
3) Scheduling is e-mailed to you for a Phone Screen Interview with a HR Reporesentative in their home offices. The phone interview is about 45 minutes long and they go over your work history, ask you for a plethora of examples on your effectiveness in previous jobs as well as some behavioral based questions.
4) You are then invited to a 1:1 Face to Face Interview with a veteran Financial Advisor. Mine was scheduled over an hour drive from my house and lasted over 2 hours where the first half is more behavioral based questions (repetitive) and second is the FA giving you their run-down of the business and company, overall seemed fairly normal as remember I have a high desire to pursue this career opportunity which I continually voiced to the company.
5) Now, get excited because you are invited to complete a Survey Activity and a Business Plan that you have one week to complete:
The survey activity consists of going door-to-door to residential AND small businesses and asking a series of 7-8 questions from a script that is provided for you, in the end, making you believe that you are trying to receive leads (the persons name and phone number with permission to call them again).
The business plan consists of nine questions where they ask you to quantify your calculations of how you will perform in your first two years as an advisor, break down each day of the week and how you will approach it, as well as some general questions where you provide an example of your approach to building your business. You then submit these completed activities which take over 10 hours or at least two full days of work to complete. I submitted mine a day early in order to provide a good impression and was called two days later asking if I was going to complete it... It was found a minute later in their JUNK folder.
6) Then, you are e-mailed again to schedule another Phone Interview with a different hiring manager! I figured this one would be a little different then the typical behavior based "tell me about..." type of interview as remember, I have over 6 weeks invested in this process at this point providing them with all the information that was asked. I was wrong, the interview started off by them questioning why I am choosing Edward Jones and they are concerned in my interest to pursue this career. I then had to re-iterate much of my reasoning and follow that up with more behavioral based questions and they did not bring up my survey activity, or business plan ONCE which leads me to believe that it was not even looked over prior to speaking with me. The interview lasted about 40 minutes and concluded that they will get back to me within 48 Hours with a decision after careful review of everything up to this point.
YES, FINALLY A DEFINITE RESPONSE AFTER ALL OF THIS.
7) 48 Hours go by, no phone call. So, on the 72nd hour I decide to contact both phone screeners that I spoke with and leave a voicemail following-up (no answer). Ten minutes after I leave a voicemail for my final interviewer I receive an e-mail from her with a generic response saying that the position is not for everyone and their are other candidates more suited for success and they can no longer consider moving me forward. DONE. No reasoning, no follow-up phone call just a generic e-mail.
I am posting this because I referenced this forum a couple times in order to familiarize myself as I went through the process and I always kept a positive outlook. I urge you all to do the same, but in my case, weeks of my time were invested and it resulted in a very negative and cold outcome on behalf of Edward Jones.