Certified Financial Planner - Work Experience

Work Experience

After passing the examination, the candidate must demonstrate to have extensive experience in the financial planning field. The CFP Board defines work experience as "the supervision, direct support, teaching or personal delivery of all or part of the personal financial planning process to a client" and such experience must fall within one or more of the following six primary elements of financial planning:

• Establishing and Defining the Client Relationship
• Gathering Client Data and Goals
• Analyzing and Evaluating the Client's Financial Status
• Developing and Presenting Financial Planning Recommendations and Alternatives
• Implementing the Financial Planning Recommendations
• Monitoring the Financial Planning Recommendations

After the student passes the exam and meets one or more of the six primary elements of financial planning, he or she must also have completed the following:

• Three years full-time or equivalent (2,000 hours per year) part-time experience in the financial planning field
• Two years of full-time experience under the "Apprenticeship Experience" option, which requires experience focused exclusively on personal delivery of all the steps of the personal financial planning process to a client under direct supervision of a CFP professional (the Apprenticeship option became effective September 1, 2012)
• Be approved by the CFP Board during initial certification, which also involves an extensive background check—including an ethics, character and criminal check.