Overview: The Financial Services industry has some unique conventions regarding job titles. Awareness of these will help you evaluate job opportunities and your career progress.
Vice President: Most noteworthy is the liberal fashion with which Financial Services firms bestow the title of Vice President. In other industries, this title is reserved for a handful of the most senior executives. In a Financial Services firm, Vice President generally is an honorific earned by an individual, or an indicator of rank, rather than a descriptive attached to a specific position in the firm. Thus, you might get promoted to Vice President while staying in place, retaining your current job and responsibilities.
Because so many management employees eventually earn the title of Vice President, there typically is a hierarchy of Vice Presidents. One leading firm recently had this menu of VPs for Support staff, with the highest at the top:
- Senior Executive VP
- Executive VP
- Senior VP
- First VP
- Director
- VP
- Assistant VP
Among the above, only the top two, the Executive VP designations, actually attached to specific jobs within the corporation. An upgrade in title may or may not bring an automatic increase in pay, or in the potential for future increases. Benefits such as vacation time typically do indeed increase as you advance through the hierarchy of titles. The rules vary among employers.
Within the universe of Producers there normally is an entirely separate hierarchy of VPs, with different criteria for admission to the club and different benefits associated with it. For example, Financial Advisors might earn titles like VP-Investments or First VP-Investments based on reaching specific quantifiable criteria related to the size and profitability of their client bases.
