A much-admired client at a life insurance company (we'll leave them both nameless) told me recently that ‘the industry' is really bad at recruiting.

Because he's a good friend, we were able to have a frank conversation about why. "It's because you don't try" I said.

"What do you think all these people we have in sales are doing?" he retorted.

I said business development managers only very, very, rarely do any recruitment to the industry. We argued a bit, and then we looked for evidence of recruitment activity, and this is what we found:

Websites: The first five life insurer websites we checked had nothing on them relevant to recruitment of advisers.

One of them has a ‘careers' area, but this actually has nothing to do with proper jobs where you ask a client if they are going to buy something.

Let's be clear, that's not just nothing to try and tempt a person considering financial advice as a career - it was also nothing to tempt a current adviser to inquire further about their offer. Nothing.

Telephone: I stuck the phone on speaker and we tried mystery shopping a company.

"I'd like to talk about becoming an adviser" was followed by all sorts of signs of a lack of organisation, variously; ‘who is your BDM?', ‘hmmm I'll try sales', and ‘you need to be registered you know'.

Business Development Managers: we talked with a couple. ‘We usually refer them to a couple of brokerages that we know are hiring' and ‘we're not geared up to recruit green peas' and variations on the theme.

One manager I have spoken to at a company which mainly distributes through aligned adviser businesses had a clear process.

Dealer Groups: I shifted tack, and checked with several dealer group websites. Still nothing for the aspiring financial adviser.

Later in the week I received a call from an adviser who has been working in the field just two years. When they joined their the industry they said that the position wasn't advertised they approached a person they knew.

The manager of the business had no role description and provided no estimate of the potential rewards. There was no clearly defined list of the steps necessary to qualify and start work.

You would think that the industry has no jobs to offer, yet every insurer and most brokerages that are bigger than one person that I know of all say that they want to recruit. Only one or two act as if they really mean it.

The key components of recruiting activity are: advertise, have a role description, understand the personal characteristics you are looking for, have a presentation that explains the function, and a clear set of steps for the individual to take in order to become an adviser.

Why not do it now - almost nobody else is.