Financial advisor career tools for people becoming an advisor

It shows what carries over and which gaps a license or course closes. Of the jobs it scores, securities sales agents, loan officers and accountants share the most with advisors. Selling is the second most common wide gap, and no license covers it. Each from-your-job guide, such as teacher to financial advisor, reads the same ratings for one job in depth.

For service members, the military guide reads O*NET's military crosswalk. No active code in that crosswalk links directly to personal financial advisors (0⁸ of 23,350⁸ records). Many leadership and operations codes link to general and operations managers, and the guide compares that job's skills with an advisor's.

It returns the exams you still need in order, which ones need a sponsor, and the registration step that follows. Someone who wants to both sell and advise, for example, gets the SIE, then the Series 7 once a firm sponsors them, then the Series 66, the combined state exam that pairs with the Series 7. No exam is a license by itself. Your state registers you only after a firm files your Form U4.

It asks your goal, your state and the exams you have passed, and you can add a start date and the hours a week you can study. It lists the exam fees, FINRA's registration and fingerprint fees and, for the states it covers so far, your state's own fee, at the amounts each one publishes and the date we last checked them, with a total and a subtotal of what you can pay before a firm sponsors you. That matters because some prep pages still list an older SIE fee, where FINRA's fee as of October 29, 2026⁶ is $100¹. The timeline runs on the official deadlines, from how long an SIE pass lasts to how long a state exam pass stays good before a firm registers you.

The exams are the same everywhere. What changes is registration, meaning each state's securities regulator, its fee, whether it requires the Series 63, which designations it accepts in place of the Series 65, and whether IARs must take continuing education. Each state page cites the regulator's own rule.

For each place it gives employment, jobs per thousand, the median wage with its spread, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis price level, shown as prices and never as adjusted pay. Metros with their own pages are on the cities hub.

Nationally, the May 2025 median annual wage for personal financial advisors was $105,070⁹ across all employers. The lowest-paid tenth earned under $50,190⁹ and the highest-paid tenth over $357,020⁹. The figures include commissions and production bonuses but leave out self-employed advisors, and they describe people already in the job, not what a new advisor is paid.

That might be a firm that sponsors your first exam, arriving licensed before anyone hires you, selling for commission, advising for a fee, or doing both. Someone who wants to sell investments and also advise for a fee, for example, sees that it takes both registrations, held at one firm registered as both or at a broker-dealer and a separate adviser firm. It compares kinds of firms only, never named firms.