Careers

RBC Dominion Securities

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Member
Jul 28, 2012
206 posts
42 upvotes

RBC Dominion Securities

Not too familiar with this pathway but am just exploring career moves. Apparently being an Investment Advisor with RBC Dominion Securities is a very sales oriented role but if you are the 1 in 5 to succeed, you can do very well. My friend who does tax returns says one of his clients is an RBC Investment Advisor and his T4 was over $1M. Anyone know if this is normal or have any idea of what a more realistic salary is? I know it's all commission based but if you build your book of business and are able to retain clients ongoing, your commissions in theory each year should continue to grow.
18 replies
Sr. Member
Sep 28, 2013
836 posts
625 upvotes
Are you asking if a $1MM total income is realistic or whether it's realistic for the 1 in 5 who 'make it'? The answer is no to both. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who made an absolute killing in real estate, being an advisor, bitcoin etc. And the truth is, the very very top players do make lots of money and yes, that can be in excess of $1MM. But that's certainly not a realistic target to aim for. But hey, people open restaurants all the time and that business has like an 80% failure rate so odds might not mean much to a lot of people,

Anyway, wealth/asset management is undergoing a big secular change - the fee model and the very existence of advisors in the future is pretty murky.
Member
Jul 28, 2012
206 posts
42 upvotes
angrybanker wrote: Are you asking if a $1MM total income is realistic or whether it's realistic for the 1 in 5 who 'make it'? The answer is no to both. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who made an absolute killing in real estate, being an advisor, bitcoin etc. And the truth is, the very very top players do make lots of money and yes, that can be in excess of $1MM. But that's certainly not a realistic target to aim for. But hey, people open restaurants all the time and that business has like an 80% failure rate so odds might not mean much to a lot of people,

Anyway, wealth/asset management is undergoing a big secular change - the fee model and the very existence of advisors in the future is pretty murky.
Fairpoint on the changes within the industry, the switch to a fee model and more robo advisors has me hesitant on considering wealth management as a career pathway.

To your question/comment on the $1M+, I was that your T4 income would be this if you hit a certain level in terms of your book of assets under management. At this point, your title becomes VP with RBC Dominion Securities. I was clicking around Linkedin and there were tons of people with this title but I guess as you've said, they're probably far and few relatively speaking. I'm willing to put in the work and have put in the work in other career pathways (14+ hour days and weekends) but want to make sure I'm putting in the work for a pathway with a possibility for success.
Sr. Member
Sep 28, 2013
836 posts
625 upvotes
aspen300 wrote: Fairpoint on the changes within the industry, the switch to a fee model and more robo advisors has me hesitant on considering wealth management as a career pathway.

To your question/comment on the $1M+, I was that your T4 income would be this if you hit a certain level in terms of your book of assets under management. At this point, your title becomes VP with RBC Dominion Securities. I was clicking around Linkedin and there were tons of people with this title but I guess as you've said, they're probably far and few relatively speaking. I'm willing to put in the work and have put in the work in other career pathways (14+ hour days and weekends) but want to make sure I'm putting in the work for a pathway with a possibility for success.
I'm not knocking it as a career path, I think you just have to assess it for what it's worth. If you were to plot a distribution of people's earnings in terms of being an advisor, you'd probably have a lot of guys who make a pretty good living and below, with a few outliers to the far right. Sales roles are like that by nature. Now RBC isn't some dinky shop so your chances of succeeding there are better than most but unfortunately, a high-paying job is not easy to get and requires considerable sacrifice and work to attain, unless you're one of the very lucky few. Something like risk management in contrast, while not exactly glamorous, will pretty much guarantee you a great but not spectacular income for life. Just keep in mind that people tend to overestimate their luck/ability in terms of taking risk for reward....and that's why they're always hiring for advisors ;)
Member
Jul 28, 2012
206 posts
42 upvotes
All fair points. Thanks for the insight and thoughts!!
Deal Addict
Mar 24, 2005
1361 posts
117 upvotes
Like what has been said already, those making it big are the exception, not the rule.

You need to know whether you’re good at sales, marketing, relationship management, sales strategy development, etc. Just because you’re willing to work hard does not mean it translates to automatic success. If you honestly believe hard work alone will translate into big incomes you are wrong. You need to be very good at what you do and then work hard on *that*. If you’re not good at sales then no matter how hard you try, you will always hit a limit.

Also I disagree about the comment about the existence of advisors going away. In fact pretty much all the major global consulting firms’ whitepaper have all agreed advisors are not going away. Studies of the millennials have shown while the new generation of investors prefer investing online and using robo advisors, these same millennials have all agreed that they would want an advisor as they get older and progress through their various life stages. While all the major institutions have made big investments in acquiring or building their own robo advisors, the return on investments have been diminishing and the retention rate of robo advisors have been dwindling. People are realizing the limitations of what roboadvisors can and cannot do and most have noted they are better off doing their own self directed investing and own research as opposed to being stuck to a fixed asset allocation made by a robo advisor - and robo advisory services, although lower than full service, is still more expensive than self directed.

Where banks are now focusing on is augmenting investment advisor’s decision making with cognitive technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and being able to mine massive amounts of data and leveraging that information towards investment decisions. AI, Machine Learning and natrial language processing will all play important roles to perform in human intelligence that is simply not possible for a real human to perform in a timely manner - but the technology is far from maturity for replacing advisors all together, let alone robo advisors. Robo advisors are simply just rules based applications and lack any intelligence.

My credibility: I am a Managing Director for a global consulting firm and a leader in digital strategy & technology innovation.
Member
Dec 28, 2017
404 posts
180 upvotes
Burlington
If you want to start at the big 5 brokerage, you should understand that there's a minimum threshold on the size of your book (amount of moneis your clients invested with you). RBC is the biggest. .. I think their minimum requirement for advisors is 500MM in size? (Could be slightly less, but definitely higher than 250MM).

So... before you start.. think about how much money you can bring or if you are ready to buy an existing book from someone else
Sr. Member
Dec 11, 2013
817 posts
911 upvotes
Toronto
I would keep in mind that the Marketplace episode on Advisors really clued in a lot of people to how this works.
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Mar 24, 2005
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JFlash20 wrote: I would keep in mind that the Marketplace episode on Advisors really clued in a lot of people to how this works.
Sorry but your comment applies very little if at all to this thread. That CBC marketplace investigation is about the lower ranked financial advisors who are basically just car salesmen for the retail banks. An investment advisor, has fiduciary responsibility for a client’s book and only deals with high net worth or ultra high net worth clients - which is what the op wants to inquire about. Financial advisors earn in the ball park of 50k whereas Investment Advisors can earn north of 6 figures or more. The issue that CBC marketplace uncovered was specific to financial advisors only. I guess a lot of people feel duped because they believe financial advisors (or similar fancy titles) actually know what they’re doing when realistically, they only passed a certificate exam and then follow a script to push their own bank’s products and often recommend products which has no beat interest for the customer but for themselves. And these so called financial advisors only looks at a client’s account once a year at best.
Sr. Member
Dec 11, 2013
817 posts
911 upvotes
Toronto
Coke355mL wrote: Sorry but your comment applies very little if at all to this thread. That CBC marketplace investigation is about the lower ranked financial advisors who are basically just car salesmen for the retail banks. An investment advisor, has fiduciary responsibility for a client’s book and only deals with high net worth or ultra high net worth clients - which is what the op wants to inquire about. Financial advisors earn in the ball park of 50k whereas Investment Advisors can earn north of 6 figures or more. The issue that CBC marketplace uncovered was specific to financial advisors only. I guess a lot of people feel duped because they believe financial advisors (or similar fancy titles) actually know what they’re doing when realistically, they only passed a certificate exam and then follow a script to push their own bank’s products and often recommend products which has no beat interest for the customer but for themselves. And these so called financial advisors only looks at a client’s account once a year at best.
This was actually my point, trust for the legit and less-legit roles have gone down. People are still confused by the difference.

That said, in the end, people that are successful in this field do so with the skill set that would have allowed them to be successful in many fields. If you're good at sales and networking now, then you will do well. If you feel you need to learn these skills, don't do it.
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Sep 19, 2005
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aspen300 wrote: Not too familiar with this pathway but am just exploring career moves. Apparently being an Investment Advisor with RBC Dominion Securities is a very sales oriented role but if you are the 1 in 5 to succeed, you can do very well. My friend who does tax returns says one of his clients is an RBC Investment Advisor and his T4 was over $1M. Anyone know if this is normal or have any idea of what a more realistic salary is? I know it's all commission based but if you build your book of business and are able to retain clients ongoing, your commissions in theory each year should continue to grow.
The question you need to ask yourself is, "Am I OK making a lot of money by overcharging clients who are trying to save for their retirement and kid's educations?"

You earn $1M a year as an investment advisor by steering your clients to investments that make *your firm* money, not the clients. I strongly suggest reading William Bernstein's "The Four Pillars of Investing."
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Dec 8, 2007
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There’s a difference between the financial advisors you see at branches hawking 3.5% MER diversified index tracked mutual fund and higher end advisers.

The retail guys have a well defined lead generation and distribution channel ... they get referrals from the branch they work at and product allocation is determined by the computer (“let’s review your risk profile”). Their job is a hand holding one.
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retrothing wrote: The question you need to ask yourself is, "Am I OK making a lot of money by overcharging clients who are trying to save for their retirement and kid's educations?"

You earn $1M a year as an investment advisor by steering your clients to investments that make *your firm* money, not the clients. I strongly suggest reading William Bernstein's "The Four Pillars of Investing."
Rob Carrick, that you bro?
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Mar 29, 2008
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I don’t consider bank salesmen real advisors, though of course the biggest Canadian broker/dealers are owned by the banks.
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Oct 3, 2009
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I know a few people who work in the business with T4's in the 7 figure range. They all started in the 80 or early 90s. The business has drastically changed over the past 10-15 years. RBC in my town, the youngest person working there is in their late 40's. Most of the advisors are 55+. RBC dominion sells themselves as a wealth management shop. They dont want you to even work there unless you have a 25 million book of business. It is very much a sales job, and the value that the average advisor is adding to their clients is decreasing by the day with technology. Most shops charge their clients 1% AUM fee. That means if you have a million dollar portfolio, they stick you in a bunch of funds that pay 3.5% in dividends, and they charge the client 1%, leaving them with 2.5% in dividend returns. So if you have 1 million dollars, why would you want to pay some advisor dude 10 grand a year for you to make 25 grand, when you could just do it yourself with the technology out there these days and keep it all? The AUM model is dying because of how low yields are these days. Advisors are taking too much of whatever the investments are yielding. The value add is shifting to HNW or UHNW advisors who offer wholistic financial and estate planning services. And the problem lies in, UHNW clients do not want to give their assets over to some rookie advisor. They typically go to the 55+ year old advisors who have been doing it for decades. If you are new to the business, you will be running around trying to convince people with relatively little money to invest to become your clients, and hope that you can amass a big enough book that RBC doest kick you out. They will give you a few years to get to 20M assets and if you cant get there, your pretty much shown the door. And the catch 22 is, the clients you will be trying to acquire really do not need your services. You are a rip off, and there are better alternatives in the marketplace for these people than paying your 1% AUM fee. So your business model is going after essentially clueless people who know nothing about investing and what other alternatives there are in the marketplace. So essentially you are selling yourself these days.
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Dec 29, 2012
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What's the difference between an investment advisor for RBC DS that calls themselves a Vice-President (looks like you can have your own company)?
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Robo advisers and typical financial advisors at retail banks are no more than sales channels. You typically get standard returns with these channels by way of passive investing. They are no more than matching your profile with funds which is very easy to do.

Then there are asset managers that actually manage these passive funds. They typically get 1% AUM fees. Some of these asset managers also do active funds, but you can’t really manage an active fund for the general public/non accredited investors since it limits the active returns, thats why you dont see these active funds beating passive often.

Then there are those high end portfolio managers that do real active management such as hedge funds. These are only accessible by accredited investors.
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Catnippy wrote: What's the difference between an investment advisor for RBC DS that calls themselves a Vice-President (looks like you can have your own company)?
Just a fancy title for their top advisors.
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