Ideally, a Series 7 tutor should have their own materials for the tests they teach. I’m a bit surprised when I hear that some series 7 tutors don’t have their own materials. I have spent the last few years developing materials for the Series 7 exam and other licensing exams. It takes a lot of work, but my full time job is to tutor Series 7 and tutor for other licensing exams.
I’m not even sure how you can conduct online meetings if you are using another vendor’s preparation materials.
How would you show the content to students? When I conduct online meetings, I share a presentation with students via screen sharing. If the student and I are working on practice problems, the student sees my file that contains practice problems. I have created over 1000 questions for the Series 7 exam and other licensing exams. If I am teaching Series 7 exam content from a presentation, the student is looking at my presentation.
I don’t think it’s appropriate to show up to a meeting with a book written by some other prep provider. It also seems a bit strange to read a book. The student can read the book on their own. Whenever you are interested in hiring a Series 7 tutor, I encourage you to create your own materials. There is also another issue here: does the tutor have approval to use another prep provider’s materials?
When hiring a series 7 tutor for any other licensing exam, you need to ask several questions as detailed below:
1. Did you pass the series 7 exam and what score did you receive? If the tutor cannot remember the score, it was probably not very high. You should be looking to work with someone who has passed the exam with a high score. If the Series 7 tutor passed with a 73, that person may not know nearly 30% of the material.
2. Do you regularly work with Series 7 students? If the tutor doesn’t regularly help people with a particular exam, that person may not be able to help you much. You should also ask for the number of years the tutor has been teaching the particular exam content.
3. Do you have experience investing in the content you are teaching? Real world experience is very important. How would a Series 7 tutor help people with recommendations if that tutor has never had a job making recommendations?
4. What are your academic qualifications? The Series 7 tutor should have extensive investment experience. Having a college and / or graduate degree in finance would be a good foundation. While a mentor does not need to be a certified financial planner or a CFA holder, these designations show that a mentor has successfully gone through financial programs that are quite challenging.