Academy Selection Manager

About The Role

At St. James's Place, we're committed to helping people achieve financial wellbeing with confidence. To support that ambition, we continue to invest in attracting and developing exceptional talent through our Financial Adviser Academy, creating the next generation of successful advisers across our Partnership.

As an Academy Selection Manager, you'll play a key role in shaping that future. You'll assess and select individuals with the potential to succeed as Financial Advisers, helping us build a strong and sustainable pipeline of talent. This is an opportunity to influence the long-term success of the Partnership by identifying people with the mindset, resilience and ambition required to thrive in a professional advice career.

Working closely with colleagues across the Academy, Business Partnering, Regulatory Authorisations and the wider Partnership, you'll deliver a structured and engaging assessment experience that enables informed, evidence-based decisions while ensuring candidates have a clear understanding of the opportunities available to them.

What You'll Be Doing

• Delivering the Academy Selection and Assessment process, identifying individuals with the aptitude and potential to build successful careers as Financial Advisers.
• Conducting structured interviews and assessments that evaluate candidates against the behaviours, capabilities and attributes needed to succeed within the Partnership.
• Building strong relationships with internal stakeholders to ensure candidates are appropriately assessed, selected and transitioned into the Academy.
• Supporting recruitment and growth ambitions by providing insights and recommendations that contribute to the quality of future Adviser appointments.
• Managing and facilitating the Transfers process, assessing readiness for Adviser and Business Owner roles and providing objective recommendations.
• Maintaining accurate management information and reporting to support effective decision-making and stakeholder engagement.
• Promoting continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to enhance selection processes and candidate experience.

About You

You'll be a confident and credible assessment or selection professional with experience gained within Financial Services. You understand how to identify potential as well as performance, and you're skilled at balancing commercial awareness with objective decision-making. You'll enjoy building relationships with a range of stakeholders, guiding candidates through important career decisions and contributing to the development of future talent. With excellent communication skills and strong professional judgement, you'll be comfortable making evidence-based recommendations that support positive outcomes for both candidates and the business.

Essential Criteria

• Experience delivering structured assessment and selection processes.
• Proven ability to interview, assess and identify talent and potential.
• Strong judgement with the ability to make objective, evidence-based decisions.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills.
• Commercial awareness and understanding of the Financial Services sector.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience within a Financial Adviser, Wealth Management or wider regulated Financial Services environment.
• Knowledge of Adviser recruitment, development or Academy-style programmes.
• Experience of psychometric assessment tools or willingness to gain psychometric accreditation, including Hogan.
• Experience supporting process improvement initiatives.