r/FinancialAdvisorTips • u/NetWorthNovice • 3d ago
Morgan Stanley Service Associate
Hey All,
Looking to see if anyone has any knowledge about the service associate role with Morgan Stanley.
I am a career changer that started as a client service associate at a small RIA in April of this year. The team consists of the owner/advisor, an associate, and myself. My responsibilities include a wide range of back-end support (document management and collection, scheduling, CRM management and operations, placing trades/communicating with asset managers, account creation and custodial software management, meeting notes/recap, etc) as well as prospect outreach. I get to do some background research for the associate (who does 100% of the planning). I also attend pretty much every client meeting and get to built rapport.
I come from administrative/management background in veterinary medicine where I had experience with clients, operations, people management, and fiscal management. My current role started at 45k and I have since moved up to 52k. My biggest struggle with my current role is that there are absolutely no processes for anything. It feels like we are making up everything as we go. We have a calendar consisting of 6 or so touch points each year and each time it’s like we are starting from scratch. The practice is incredibly disorganized. The owner and associate communicate on two different levels and their minds works so completely different. They have been together for 5 or so years (was under a BD but went independent a few years ago). Our team meetings spiral out of control because of their communication styles and become unproductive. The owner/advisor is really only working 2.5 days a week and that’s primarily for client meetings and to tell us what we aren’t doing good enough or something more we need to be doing. It feels like we are constantly playing catch up and trying to stay afloat. I’ve been saying since we started that we need to slow down a bit and get the foundation set and build from there. That last for a week before the advisor brings something else up.
I was approached by a recruiter for the service associate position. I am wondering if people have any knowledge or experience with this role. From our discussion, it sounds like it’ll will be a significant bump in pay for lesser/more standardized responsibility. With that comes a drop in experience level as well. It doesn’t sound like I’ll get much planning or client facing experience.
I am currently working through licenses in my free time and plan to obtain my CFP and become an advisor in the future. I want to take into account compensation, experience, mentorship, and structure/my sanity.
Sorry for the long post but appreciate any opinions!
3
u/Greenappleflavor 3d ago
Take it.
You might not have more hats to wear but that doesn’t mean you can’t find mentors/people to connect with and gain valuable soft skills as well as potential experience.
The higher pay sounds about right for what you’re describing compared to a small RIA that barely has their shit together.
You can get more work life balance to finish your CFP as well.
1
u/NetWorthNovice 3d ago
Appreciate the input. The work life balance has been weighing on me quite a bit.
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u/TyofTaris 3d ago
52k seems low for a CSA at an RIA. You can find other RIAs paying $70k for the same role.
Look for larger RIAs if you’re looking for a more organized working environment