Perfect combo of education and learning on the job

Qualifications and experience are both key to getting great outcomes for clients. The qualifications prove you have the competency to do the job, whilst experience is what can separate the good from the great; neither is more important than the other. I don't care how many years of experience a brain surgeon may have, they're coming nowhere near me if they aren't qualified, but I'd also feel uncomfortable being their first real patient as they leave medical school with a shiny new qualification. Both are needed to instill trust and confidence in customers.

The CeMAP qualification is a good baseline to give future advisers a basic level of knowledge about the house-buying process and the UK financial system. However, letting an adviser loose based on CeMAP alone would be a recipe for disaster. As a mortgage broker, you spend a lot of time building client relationships, people skills cannot be taught in a book. You also need to know mortgage lender criteria and how to apply them to real-life situations, a large slice of common sense is helpful in this regard.

The fact of the matter is CeMAP can be obtained through the completion a two-week course and simply doesn’t provide Advisers with the tools required to give comprehensive advice and support.

Would you let someone with that level of training give you Pension advice?

The experience gained from working as a Trainee or Case Manager amongst competent Advisers is invaluable and something that shouldn’t be bypassed.

As an industry I believe we have a duty of care to ensure that our people are suitably trained to steer their clients in the right direction. Yes that means getting qualified, but letters after your name should be treated as the first step on a very long ladder, not the minimum entry requirement.

The fact that the current qualification routes e.g. CeMAP teach you absolutely nothing on how to do the job. Plenty about products that haven't really been sold for 30 years mind you.

Personally, I'd rip it apart and start again with something fit for the 21st century including social media and advertising guidelines, packaging cases, and researching lender criteria.

Nothing will beat on-the-job training, but in a regulated business with lots of people working from home, monitoring is essential. New starters should have some basic training, then some 'side-by-side training before they are 'let off the lead'. You need to be confident of quality and compliance beforehand. A lot of brokers start a job and are left out in the cold. This usually means a high turnover of staff which as everyone knows, is not a good business plan.

Having stepped into the mortgage industry myself only 2 years ago I am pretty well versed when it comes to learning on the job and filling gaps in knowledge. I strongly believe that in life you get out what you put in. I don't believe the mortgage industry is any different. The CeMAP qualifications are very outdated and textbook-like. The academies that offer training are all geared up in a way that develops you and your skills to "pass the qualification" and not provide sound advice to clients.

The only advice I can offer anybody looking to step foot into the industry is to do your research. Make sure you are prepared to work hard, reading lenders' criteria, finding the time to sit with lender business development managers to learn criteria and most importantly. Understand your customer's circumstances and tailor your advice around their circumstances. No two clients are the same

I think practical application is lacking in terms of broker qualification, it's all well and good to have a few multiple choice questions in a CeMAP exam however these are usually based on the most vanilla cases and never focus on bridging or commercial deals. I would say 90% of the learning is on the job. Everyday you are going to see something new, I have been in the industry for over 5 years now and still see deals structured in ways I have never seen before. On the job learning also provides you with so much confidence when speaking and negotiating with clients and suppliers. Having recognised that classroom and text book learning is limited, we have established our own training division called Finanze Success that has enabled us to create additional opportunities to up-skill our staff and our clients through real-life case studies and masterclasses.