Building a Career While Making a Difference

Published on Thursday, 26 May 2011 16:35

By NMFN

Young professionals turn financial representative internships into rewarding full-time careers

Entering college, Juan Baron, Swati Desai and Itopa Afadama envisioned themselves in careers as bankers. Internships with Northwestern Mutual showed them a different path with the added satisfaction of running their own business and making a real difference for clients and in their communities.

All three are now either shaping or preparing for full-time careers as financial representatives, providing guidance to help clients achieve long-term financial security. This year, Northwestern Mutual plans to attract 2,500 college and university students to its financial representative intern program, which was recognized as one of the ten best internships in the nation by the 2011 Vault Guide to Internships.

“The internship gave me a chance to test-drive the profession,” said Baron, a business graduate of the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and for the past three years a financial representative with Strategic Financial Group, a Northwestern Mutual office based in Los Angeles. “I wasn’t running around fetching coffee. I had my own clients. I worked 30 hours a week. I even had a part-time staff person I was paying for. I was running a business. I had the opportunity to make just as big an impact on my clients, and do just as well financially, as a full-time advisor.”

Baron, 24, interned for three years and led all Northwestern Mutual interns for premium production in the last two of those years. His training included opportunities to finish most course work toward his three major professional certifications while still in college, and at the company’s expense.

He appreciates a work culture where clients’ interests come first. “We’re always asking ourselves, ‘If we were the client, what would we want?’” he said. “That attitude pervades every aspect of what we do.”

Baron sees the rewards of his career reaching well beyond professional success. “Our country is in difficult financial straits now,” he said. “I feel that in a small way, one person, one family and one business at a time, we’re helping to put America back on the right path.”

Desai, 22, now a financial representative with The Texas Financial Group in Houston, interned for eight months in Austin while finishing a degree in economics at the University of Texas. She ranked among the nation’s top four interns before going full-time last February.

While close college friends served internships at banks working from nine to five in the office, Desai spent most of her time in the field visiting prospects, with a highly flexible work schedule and compensation commensurate with her production. “The rewards were there for all the hard work I put in,” she said.

“The training has been awesome,” Desai said. “Colleagues are always willing to take time out of their day to teach you, help you, and build you up after a bad day.”

She appreciates the emphasis on balancing work and home life: “We work very hard, but we’re encouraged not to work weekends and to have the day’s last appointment at 5 p.m. so we can spend the evenings with our families.”

Desai also thrives on the client relationships that she expects to last for many years. “I recently had a client call me because his wife was pregnant and he wanted me to be among the first to know,” Desai said. “In what other career would that happen?”

Afadama, who has ranked among the company’s top ten interns, is a master’s student in risk management and finance at the University of Oklahoma. He has been an intern for two years at Northwestern Mutual – Oklahoma/Northwest Arkansas and hopes his career with the company will one day include leading a network office.

“From the first and second interviews for the internship, I saw that this was a career where I could have value for other people – anyone from a doctor to a college student to someone working in a restaurant,” Afadama said. “This internship has substance; it really matters.  Being able to wake up every morning and know that I’m going to make an impact on someone’s life is very exciting for me. I’ve been able to do that while working toward my goals with some of the best interns and the finest people in the world.”

The greatest skill he learned from the internship is the discipline of handling multiple responsibilities – work, school and personal life. “That’s something that will serve a person well in any career,” he said.

Students interested in internships with Northwestern Mutual can visit the company’s website at www.northwesternmutual.com or contact a local office.

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