Ask about experience when you get a new guy. The primary license you need to have in order to be a financial advisor is a series 7 securities licence. Coincidentally that is the same license you need just to do brokerage trades so the person you get when you call the regular 1-800 number has the same thing.
An advisor will normally also have a 65 or 66 but those tests are easier than the 7. They just have more legal definitions, but no extra investment knowledge. Unless you're advisor has a CFP, or CFA, etc. there isn't really anything to stand them apart from the guy who just started in the call center two weeks ago. Your advisor might even be that guy. You could be talking to someone with <1yr experience or 20 years of experience. Ask...
Honestly someone who knows what they are doing will be able to give a confident experienced answer even if they have little hands on experience. Someone who already feels a little overwhelmed/unprepared is going to be skittish when asked about experience. If all they talk about is passing the exam, run! Remember, even the call center guy who just started did that.
My background: I use to be a financial advisor. During my career I held series 7, 63, 65, 66(not all at the same time), and passed the CFP. From my own experience and the changes in my own investing philosophy as I gained more experience I can say experience matters a great deal when working with an advisor. Some of the people I worked with had 0 investing experience prior to being hired, didn't even know the difference between a stock and a bond when they were hired, barely passed the series 7 on the second attempt, and then they were giving advice. Some of the things I heard them tell people...
It's been said before but you can get a lot of questions answered here. If you do need an advisor make sure they know what they are doing. Not getting back to you is the smallest mistake they could make. Bad recommendations are worse, and a good advisor would actually point out things you never thought of (you could be a good candidate for a backdoor Roth, your beneficiaries are set up wrong[I had to correct attorneys on this one], tell you that you can stop working today [my favorite], etc.).