If you’re interested in retirement, either because you’re planning your own or because you find the subject fascinating, you may have wondered if you could share your knowledge in a formal way. The good news? It is quite possible, there are introductory courses in retirement led by specialists in the field.

The bad news? Most people don’t get their retirement advice of course. Instead, they will consult a professional retirement planner who can offer individual advice on their wallet and educate them along the way. That’s why most educators who teach retirement planning courses were once Certified Financial Planners (CFP)and why it might be a better way to go if you’re looking for a career in retirement planning.

Educators, Planners and Retirement Advisors

People get retirement advice in a variety of ways. Some are turning to retirement planning classes, taught by full-time or part-time educators. Others seek advice from family, friends or colleagues. Most, however, will use a combination of individual research and professional advice.

Professional retirement advice is often provided by a retirement planner. A retirement planner is a financial planner which specializes in helping people prepare a pension plan and live out their final years in financial security. As the name suggests, these professionals focus on the client’s needs will be once they stop working. This means not only ensuring that retirees have a large enough pension to live comfortably, but also meeting other requirements such as estate planning and Insurance.

Some financial planners specialize in just one area of ​​finance, such as retirement, but others are generalists. The most common professional designation for planners is Certified Financial Planner (CFP), issued by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board), the not-for-profit certification and standards organization that administers the CFP exam.

However, there are other sources of professional advice. A Financial Advisor can also give advice on retirement-related topics. “Financial advisor” is a much broader term than financial planner and can refer to almost any professional, including a CFP, who advises people on their finances. This is an important and often confusing distinction: every financial planner is a financial advisor, but not all financial advisors are financial planners.

Financial planners and advisors are, in a sense, also educators. They help individuals understand their retirement needs and how they can meet them. Many CFPs also teach courses on retirement planning, offering the same guidance in the classroom as they would to individuals.

Share your retirement expertise

Given the range of ways people seek retirement advice, it follows that there are a range of ways to become a retired educator.

• If you are looking for a career in retirement planning, apply for a position with a company that offers this service. It could be a huge financial company like Fidelity or Vanguard, or a small local company specializing in retirement advice. You’ll probably need a college degree to get a job like this, but this type of business just might pay you to train and even earn a CFP certification.
• Alternatively, you could pay for your own education and become a independent financial planner who specializes in retirement. You can even self-fund the courses required to become a CFP, although they can be expensive. But it’s a pretty risky path – you’ll essentially be running your own business, and without an impressive array of qualifications and experience people may be understandably reluctant to hire you.
• Another option: Find a company that offers courses in retirement planning and apply to become a teacher for them. During your research, however, you will probably find that most educators in this type of course came from one of the two backgrounds we have mentioned: either they worked for a company that provides services and advice on retirement, or they were CFP.
• A less advisable option is to simply start providing retirement advice. There’s nothing stopping you from sharing your retirement planning expertise online or with friends and colleagues. However, you should be aware that managing someone else’s money for them, including their retirement portfolio, can be very risky.

The essential

There are classes on retirement planning, taught by educators with expert knowledge of retirement accounts, strategies, and taxes. Most of these educators will have spent some time working as a financial planner or advisor, and they may well hold a professional certification like the CFP qualification.

In other words, becoming a retired educator will likely involve becoming a retirement planner or counselor first. This will likely involve landing a job at a company that both provides retirement advice and is willing to train you to do the same.