- Ellevest has a mission to put more money in the hands of women through financial literacy.
- Fintechs are seeing interest from Wall Street talent, burned out and looking for flexible work.
- Ellevest is hiring across many teams in 2022, from financial advisors to marketing and design.
A recent survey conducted by NerdWallet found that just 48% of women invested in the stock market, compared to 66% of men.
Ellevest, a financial services company “built by women for women,” has a mission to change that — and, in the process, get more money in the hands of women and other underrepresented groups.
“The
financial services industry
was built by men, and therefore, by default, it was not built for women,” said Amanda Polcari, Ellevest’s director of people operations.
As a robo-advisor investment platform, Ellevest uses algorithms to provide financial advice and manage investments. The platform also serves as a financial literacy program, primarily for women, aiming to bridge the gender wealth gap by getting more women to invest. According to Forbes, Ellevest had 123,000 clients and $1 billion in assets under management as of March 2021. (Ellevest declined to share current figures.)
Fintech startups like Ellevest are seeing more interest from Wall Street talent who are burned out and looking for more flexible work options. The company was founded in 2014 by CEO Sallie Krawcheck, former CFO of Citigroup, and former president and COO Charlie Kroll, now the Chief Revenue Officer at the fintech startup Lithic. The company has received backing from Melinda French Gates and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
According to Polcari, the company isn’t just looking for financial advisors and private wealth managers; it’s also hiring in 2022 across client experience, product engineering, design, people operations, legal and compliance, and marketing. (At the time of this writing, there are 17 open positions on the company’s Careers page.)
“We believe that the traditional financial services sector has not been as inclusive as it could be, and therefore doesn’t have services and products that represent the community at large,” Polcari said, adding that she wants people who offer culture add, not just culture fit.
“We’re looking for candidates who are mission driven, aligned with our core values as a business, and who want to be part of building this company from the ground up since we are definitely still a startup.”
You don’t need experience in finance
There is no ideal background for candidates, but Polcari said some roles are specific. For example, a role on the investments team is going to seek out people who have experience in areas like portfolio management or asset-management.
Still, there are “plenty of people at the company that haven’t worked in finance before, and that’s intentional,” she said, emphasizing that candidates don’t need a finance or economics degree to get a job at Ellevest.
One of Ellevest’s goals, she says, is to be a place where people who have historically been excluded from breaking into the financial services sector or industry as a whole can come and see themselves and their careers develop. According to a study by McKinsey & Company, women comprise 52% of entry-level positions in the finance industry, but only 23% of C-suite executives are white women, and 4% of C-suite positions are held by women of color.
As part of the onboarding process for all new hires, regardless of role or seniority, there are a series of company-wide training sessions about finance with underlying context and information employees need to know about the industry. And once people are hired, Polcari says, employees will have access to “the information and knowledge and mentorship they need in order to do their job effectively.”
Even if you don’t check all the boxes, apply anyway
Candidates don’t have to submit a cover letter to Ellevest; the company only asks candidates to submit a résumé and fill out a questionnaire about why they want to work at Ellevest.
In the interview process, Polcari said the hiring team is made up of people from the relevant team, people from other parts of the organization, and members of the people operations team.
There are three main steps in the process: a series of phone screening calls with members of the people operations and hiring teams; a series of one-on-one interviews by video between the candidate and their future team; and role-specific exercises designed to reveal how candidates approach problem solving. Candidates may also receive take-home exercises to be completed in a certain amount of time.
For candidates who are unsure about applying to open jobs, Polcari said, “even if you don’t check all of the boxes, apply anyway.”
“One of Ellevest’s core values is diversity as an asset,” she said. “Differing points of view, different backgrounds, different professional backgrounds, different personal backgrounds, are really important if Ellevest wants to build the company it’s building.”
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