Your expenses as a new advisor out of college will likely exceed your income for a long time. This position is 100% commission based. First you pay for books to take the tests. Every weekend you will travel to table events, sometimes a few hours away, to solicit people to grow your business. You do not get paid until you earn $4000 in commissions, so a lot of new advisors spend up to 6 months working before even receiving a dime. If you have strong relationships with wealthy people, you could earn a very nice living (some have made over $100k their first year). However, most college grads do not have those connections and it is very difficult to build a strong client base when you're 22 years old soliciting pre-retirees at random events. You will also pay $225 a month in rent, and after your first year you are responsible for renewing your licenses, which costs a few thousand dollars. So all in all, you are going to have up to $10,000 in excess expenses that would not otherwise exist in a salaried position. If you decide to quit, you will have to pay ING back for sponsoring your licensing.
They will tell you that an "under-performing" advisor makes $70k their first year by picking up roughly 30 clients. You are supposed to sell one retirement plan per week, or 52 per year. The top salesperson in Philadelphia sold just over 30, whereas most others barely sold ten. Again, the top guys are making a few hundred thousand, which is awesome, but most are lucky to make $30-$40k.
My advice for most college grads would be to stay away from this position straight out of college. If you are interested in being an investment advisor, it makes more sense to get into the career later in life. Strangers are rarely going to allow 22 year olds to manage hundreds of thousands of their saved dollars. If, however, you do happen to have a good network of wealthy people to solicit, this career could be very lucrative.
