@posty: I am in the accounting field, however, I did go through campus recruiting last year with financial advisory firms as well. Typically, their salaries are low ($20k-40k). The majority of your comp comes from performance bonus due to your performance, both in sales as well as managing your accounts. A good financial planner, and I mean one who starts managing people's money, can make serious bank ($250k+). But even the best have high volatility in earnings, since it's almost all performance based and will be for your whole career.
That said, it is a completely different field. Real money also comes when you can start getting into managing trusts, estates, and start doing tax planning once you get a good amount of experience. The field is very competitive, since there are many many firms doing it as well as a lot of small shops of just a few people. I have two friends who ended up at Merrill Lynch and ING, and both are doing really well. In summary, more possible upside, but more downside when the market isn't doing so well. Less flexibility also, since you can just up and leave and expect all your clients to stick with you if you're in a different city (some may, if you're that good).
In summary, money definitely isn't the determining factor. In either field, if you are a strong performer you will be heavily rewarded. In terms of relative success, it is probably more difficult to enter the upper echelon in financial advisory than in accounting due to the ultra competitive nature, but both are great fields. Both of my friends at Merrill and ING love their jobs, then again they are typically managing clients with $100k in assets minimum and do very little with insurance (at most they may pull together a few quotes if a client wants to shop around or something). Also, financial planning seems to offer less exit opportunities, since your skill set is fairly specialized. Public accountants go on to do all sorts of things. Of course, 95% of us will have more than one career in our lives, but you just have to decide for yourself where you want to begin while keeping in mind where you (possibly) may see yourself in a decade or two. Good luck!
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