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Financial Planner Research Assistant

Employer
Kitces.com
Location
Working from home
Salary
$30-$40/hr
Closing date
Jun 2, 2023

View more

Job Role
Independent Contractor
Employment Type
Contract
Level
Entry Level
Experience Level
1-4 years
CFP® Certification
Not necessary

The mission of Kitces.com is to help real financial advisors be better and more successful, creating a 100X multiplier effect for our work and the number of consumers we can positively impact with the power of financial planning delivered by a Kitces-supported Financial Advicer to their clients.

To achieve this mission, Kitces.com publishes the leading financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View, producing award-winning commentary on financial planning strategies and practice management trends for financial advisors ranked as the most Influential, Objective, Relevant, and Useful content amongst any online media publication for financial advisors. Our Members Section provides additional white papers, webinars, training Courses to master essential skills, and the opportunity for financial planning professionals to earn Continuing Education credits, and we are invited to speak regularly at financial advisor conferences across the US and around the world to present our analysis and insights.

Unlike traditional media sites, though, Kitces.com deliberately generates no revenue from advertising or sponsored content. Instead, we remain solely focused on creating value directly for our readers, strengthening the awareness of and integrity of the Kitces brand, and being compensated directly from our readers both on our site (for those who join our Members Section, hire us to speak and consult, or purchase Kitces Research), and through our co-owned financial services solutions for consumers (who may engage with our related financial advisory firms) as well as our business solutions for financial advisors themselves (for whom we have a number of businesses providing service and technology solutions for advisory firms).

 

Kitces.com is hiring a Research Assistant in a contract role position to assist with our series of 4 semi-annual Kitces Research studies, including supporting on survey design and programming, creation of new and updates to existing Stata routines, organizing Stata outputs to Excel, and building tables and charts for the final research report.

So, if you love to swim in a sea of (advisor) data, are excited by the idea of carefully crafting survey questions to get the exact right kind of response, look forward to taking hundreds of lines of information and put it into an organized fashion in Stata to make meaning from it, and revel in bringing data to life through the creation of tables and graphs that tell a story, then this job is for you!

Description/Responsibilities

This entirely virtually-based staff position will report to the Lead Researcher and will work directly with Research Team and Chief Financial Planning Nerd, Michael Kitces.

The Research Assistant will have the following core areas of functional responsibility:

 

Primary responsibilities:

  • Assist with design of the Kitces Research survey instruments
  • Assist with online programming of the survey, including adding new questions, updating or enhancing the set-up of pre-existing questions, and programming field validation and branching logic to expedite the survey process and maximize engagement and usable responses
  • Participate in quality assurance review of online survey draft prior to study fielding
  • Update existing Stata routines for current surveys, devise and add new routines where applicable, and contribute to refining pre-existing Stata routines
  • Organize Stata output into Excel, and build initial tables and charts
  • Assist with identifying key research findings for feature in Kitces Research report
  • Hand off tables and graphs to graphic designer to be turned into final “report ready” versions
  • Proof final Kitces Research report, with special focus on data references

Pending availability:

  • Assist with refining how past surveys and questions are archived in Alchemer so that past work can be more efficiently leveraged in future surveys
  • Enhance current research project documentation, detailing the survey set-up process as well as the data compilation process

Pending Aptitude and Availability:

  • Assist with final report write-up as a contributor

 

Key Candidate Traits

Company Qualifications

Candidates for Kitces opportunities should be self-motivated enough to work in a virtual environment (autonomous), have an extremely strong inclination for continuous learning (self-development), an immaculate attention to detail (organized and efficient), a service mindset (seeks to collaborate and to help and support others), and an ability to work in a changing environment (adaptability).

Key domains of required expertise include:

  • Proficient with Stata as it relates to data management and analysis
  • Experience in online survey set-up and programming, with Alchemer experience preferred but not required
  • Experience in survey design and programming
  • Expert Excel skills

 

Education: Field of study in Financial Planning preferred but not required.

Candidates must be U.S. Citizens, and work primarily within the United States.

Compensation/Benefits:

This is a 1-year contract position for August 2023 thru July 2024, to conduct the next 2 semi-annual Kitces Research studies. (Available candidates can begin in July of 2023 for initial pre-study training.) This position is guaranteed a minimum of 100 hours for each study (200 hours across 2 studies) and should not exceed a total of 300 hours for the year. Hours required will range from 3-8 hours per week.

Effective candidates will have opportunities to renew their Research Assistant with Kitces Research for subsequent years.

What it’s like working at Kitces.com

We are a team that lives by our values, our support of one another and our commitment to the community we serve. The successful candidate will share these Kitces Core Values:

  • Do the Right
  • Thing Advisors First
  • Be the Trusted Source
  • Deposit More Than We Withdraw
  • No A$$holes
  • Get Your Nerd On

At Kitces.com we have all but eradicated internal email. All internal communication is done via Slack, or through Asana tasks.

When on Slack calls, video is expected as we believe hearing voices and seeing faces makes for stronger communication and connections. We lean on technology tools to get things done and protect our time. An example is our use of the delayed-send on Slack messages. While anyone might have a great idea pop up at any time, we are careful to make sure messages are only sent during regular business hours to respect the work/home boundaries of our work-from-home (or work-from-anywhere) team.

As a company we try to front load meetings to the beginning of the week so that the end of the week can be more focused on Deep Work to maximize our personal productivity.

While, as a remote company, we tend to attract a lot of introverts, we also recognize the value in creating work relationships, so we have a social committee that creatively offers a multitude of ways for people to connect in the ways they feel most comfortable.


To Apply:
Interested candidates for the Financial Planner Research Assistant should complete the initial application form. Questions can be directed to jobs@kitces.com.

 

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