Mortgage advisers
Position:

Trainee Mortgage & Protection Adviser

Location:

Bath, South West & Newcastle upon Tyne, North East

Salary:

£20,000 basic with potential to increase. Plus bonus: on target earnings = £45,000+ (earnings are uncapped)

Benefits:

Employee Pension Scheme, Permanent Health Insurance, Childcare Vouchers.

What you’ll get from us:
  • Lots of quality enquiries
  • Full training including industry exams
  • An excellent level of sales and post-sales support
  • Award-winning technology
  • Unbeatable market knowledge and exclusive mortgage deals not available elsewhere
  • Credibility of the most quoted mortgage broker in the national press
What we want from you:
  • Motivation and drive to succeed in a sales environment
  • Desire to provide the highest standard of advice and service to your clients
  • Eagerness to join and be a part of a dynamic, fast-growing company
  • The academic ability to pass challenging industry exams
  • Previous sales experience welcomed
Job Description
Purpose of the Role

To generate consistently a high level of quality activity from L&C leads to achieve agreed performance targets and meet the mortgage, protection and investment needs of our clients.

Reports To

Team Manager

Principle Accountabilities
  • Generate a consistently high level of quality activity with sufficient clients to meet and/or exceed agreed activity targets.
  • To gather all appropriate information so that the most suitable financial advice can be provided to the customer and evidenced in accordance with the company’s sales Process.
  • To exercise such customer care and consideration that ensures that business sold remains persistent in accordance with at least the company's agreed performance standards
  • To fully and properly document the call(s) so as to achieve or exceed the company’s performance standards for case acceptance rates.
  • To provide the service and care to the company’s customers such that builds relationships, trust and confidence and contains customer complaints.
  • To follow up existing clients of the Company with a view to providing appropriate advice during the lifetime of the product(s) previously supplied to them and/or with a view to the provision of further products and/or services where appropriate.
  • To complete all required administration in a timely and accurate manner and operate at all times in accordance with the company’s T&C Scheme and all applicable rules issued in accordance with MCOB.
  • To work towards Mortgage & Protection Adviser status by achieving required monitored calls (as stated in T&C scheme) and obtaining full CeMAP (CeMAP 1,2 & 3).
  • To undertake any other task as required from time to time including administrative or sales related duties.
Minimum Skills List
Communication Skills
  • Communicate clearly and concisely, orally and in writing with clients, colleagues, and business contacts
Technical Skills
  • Good working knowledge of IT systems relevant to job role
  • Excellent product/industry knowledge
  • Adheres to company standards and procedures at all times
Personal Responsibility and Drive
  • Prioritises effectively
  • Deadlines are met and work is regularly error free
  • Make confident, effective decisions within scope of job role
Working with Others
  • Actively participates and co-operates with others
  • Builds effective relationships and contributes to team spirit
  • Negotiates effectively with colleagues and outside agencies
Developing Self and Others
  • Actively seeks opportunities for self development
  • Provides some coaching/support to team members
  • Have passed Stage 1 T&C training
Careers FAQs
The basics of being an adviser at L&C
How much can I earn in my first year?

This depends on what time of year you start due to our bonus and commission structure. The average adviser would earn around £25,000 in their first full year advising, although this could potentially be much higher and the bonus scheme is uncapped.

What training do you offer?

You will initially attend 6 week training course which will encompass the CeMAP 1 qualification along with in-depth training on our systems and processes. Following the successful completion of the training course you receive ongoing development from Industry experts, sales coaches, and management with on the job training and regular performance reviews. London and Country will also fund the full CeMAP Qualification once you have been signed off of probation and become a permanent member of staff.

How long is the probation period?

All advisers initially start on an 8 month probation period, which consists of 2 months of initial training followed by 6 targeted months advising. It is possible to be signed off of probation after around 6 months subject to hitting all required targets and demonstrating competency in the role.

How many hours will I need to work?

The contracted hours are 39.2 per week which includes 1 in 8 Saturdays and 1 in 8 Sundays. However many advisers choose to work more hours then these to exceed targets and help more customers.

What products will I advise on?

You will be primarily advising your clients on the most suitable mortgage for them based on their personal circumstances along with the best possible way to protect themselves, the mortgage and their family. You will also be encouraging your clients to take advantage of our excellent conveyancing partners along with our market leading General Insurance offering.

What qualifications do I need?

We would normally take applicants forward who hold a minimum of 5 GCSEs including English and Maths along with 2 A Levels or the equivalent. A Degree qualification is preferred and some sales experience is desirable but neither are essential.

What is the recruitment process?

CV’s will be scrutinised and if successful you will be asked to complete an online IQ test and an application form. If the IQ test score is above our desired level we will invite you to complete a telephone interview with one of our sales managers. The next stage is again telephone based as we will conduct a role play based on a customer advising situation, after successfully completing this you will be invited to the office to meet us for a final interview.

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Still interested? These are the questions that people ask us the most during their interviews.
What do you like most about working here?

I like the people, and to see people doing well. When I see that we’ve taken someone on who’s new to the industry, trained them and they are succeeding it’s a really rewarding feeling. For example we’ve had loads of fresh university graduates buy their own house within a couple of years of starting with us and when I hear things like that you can’t help but feel you’ve helped them make it happen. The other thing to mention is we genuinely do a good thing for our customers, helping them to achieve real goals and doing it the right way. You get to sleep easy at night doing what we do, not all jobs are like that.

What do people find hardest when they start?

There is the obvious first one of passing the exam to do the job. We have a great hit rate of getting people through it, but it does require some serious study. When people get through that and the initial training they face 2 big things. Firstly the learning curve, the induction course teaches you a lot, but it can’t prepare you for every different client situation that comes up so you have to learn on your feet and be prepared to take on a huge amount of information. Secondly as a new adviser you have lots of clients with lots of different situations to deal with and you need to manage all of these as well as taking on new customers all the time. It’s a big job and so it’s important to be prepared for a challenge.

What is the environment like?

It’s busy. Fundamentally although we look like a call centre with a lot of people in rows of desks on PC’s and headsets, the reality is very different to that. You will spend a lot of time on the phone talking to clients, but we don’t measure individual call times or such like. A lot of your time will be spent researching and talking to lenders or insurers learning about how to solve client scenarios, so there is a fair bit of variety. The environment is professional as ultimately we are sorting out a massive part of clients lives, so we’re not sat around on bean bags having creative thinking sessions, but you are working in teams so we try and encourage an environment where people can have a bit of fun at the same time.

Are any of the targets team based or all individual?

Your targets are all individual in terms of rewards, recognition and performance. The team leaders obviously have team targets so they will encourage team work and there will often be team competitions on various things, but fundamentally you are responsible for your own results and success.

What is the training like/how does it work?

The initial induction course falls into 2 distinct halves. The first part is all about passing the CeMAP exam, so after you’ve completed the pre-course work and studied the book a bit before starting, there is around 2 weeks of classroom based learning for the exam prior to taking it. We use external trainers who are experts in this area to help you with this. After the exam we get on to teaching you how to do the job itself, with a lot more interactive training working through sample cases, role-playing customer calls and building up your knowledge about the product ranges before we sign you off to get out there and talk to customers.

Of course the training doesn’t end there, both your supervisor and our in house coaching team will offer you lots of support going forwards (particularly in the first year) with regular reviews, call feedback and other coaching. There are also further industry exams to study for and qualifications to be gained, alongside regular meetings with lenders and insurers to make sure your product knowledge is right on top of things. It’s a constantly changing market so you will literally never stop learning in this role.

How many people pass the exam and probation

Over 95% pass the exam, the training for it is excellent and as long as people pass our initial tests in the recruitment process, they are bright enough to pass the exam. It needs to be given a degree of respect as it’s a lot to learn, but as long as people apply themselves they are fine.

We lose around 15% of advisers in the probation period. Very few to the probation targets themselves but more that people decide it’s just not for them. That can happen in any role and sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Our turnover is very low as a whole for this kind of career

Why are you recruiting? Is it down to high turnover or expansion?

L&C is a growing business. In July 2012 the Newcastle office had 2 people working on it, now there are over 160. We first put advisers into London in 2015 and we’ve continued to grow the numbers in the original Bath office as well and only want to take more.