What is “Finance”?
When most people hear finance, they think money. While a big portion of finance is focused on the creation, management, and study of money, many don’t realize how intertwined finance can be with a company’s strategies and goals.
Every individual and organization deals with money every single day. Therefore, finance touches every single person and company in the world, playing a large role in the global economy. Because of this, the financial services industry is a vast, diverse, and dynamic industry that offers a range of careers.
This includes managing individuals’ money in a broker or advisor role, managing and analyzing company money in a corporate setting, or even investing and facilitating large transactions between huge companies as part of a financial institution.
While the sheer number of things you can do within finance may seem intimidating at first, it actually offers various options for people with different interests and skillsets.
A career in finance is a truly meaningful experience, through which one can make a difference in the world by funding visionary ideas, creating economic growth, and fostering innovation.
Yordanka Ilieva,
Strategic Investments Director at Nasdaq Ventures
So, What Skills Do Financial Professionals Have?
Financial professionals need to possess both “soft” and “hard” skills, as both your interpersonal and technical skills will be important on the job. Two standout skills that are most relevant to financial professionals include:
Accounting knowledge:
There is so much more to accounting, and anyone working in finance will come in contact with some accounting during their careers. Accounting is the way companies record and track the money that’s flowing in and out of their business on a daily basis. The most basic concepts in accounting come down to assets, which are what the company owns, liabilities, which are debts or “I-O-U”s, and equity, which is comprised of stock and leftover earnings of a company after debts are paid. These are found on a company’s financial statements, which public companies put out for everyone to access, while private companies keep them confidential and under wraps.
Communication:
Part of being a good financial professional is being able to clearly communicate numeric financial findings in an understandable way to other non-finance professionals. In other words, translating math to English. In many cases, it’s the role of a financial professional to give advice or provide recommendations based off of an analysis done on a spreadsheet that others would have a hard time understanding.
Therefore, communication, both verbal and written, is key to success in finance. You should be able to craft your findings, explanations, and recommendations to suit any given audience. You should also be ready to speak or present your work on the fly. At the end of the day, an individual or company’s money is reliant on your work as a financial professional, so your communication should help build a sense of trust between yourself and your clients or colleagues.
On top of these skills, financial professionals are also often analytical, technical, and even creative. To read more about different career related skillsets, click here.
A career in the finance industry has allowed me to develop talents within myself I did not know I had.
Brando Benedit,
Fixed Income Product Manager at Nasdaq
Top 5 Jobs in Finance:
1. Financial Analyst
A financial analyst, also known as a financial planning and analysis professional (FP&A), is a professional that generally works within a corporation or organization. Their roles focus on supporting decisions made by management by doing in-depth financial analysis on specific decisions and how they would affect their company, leaving management with actionable financial information.
While they do employ accounting knowledge as they use financial statements to track cash flows, they are different from accountants, as financial analysts more focused on making predictions (also known as projections) about the financials of different opportunities that may generate profit.
Therefore, financial analysts typically have a bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, statistics, economics, or business administration, and may even have an MBA or master’s degree in these fields as well. Financial analysts are expected to have strong quantitative skills but should also have strong communication skills in order to relay numeric information in understandable ways.
The average annual wage for financial analysts is $69,036, according to PayScale.
2. Accountant
Accountants are professionals who track inflows and outflows of money of individuals or organizations by putting together and analyzing documents called financial statements. Unlike financial analysts, who focus on future financial information, accountants focus on historical financial information, which they organize within the different financial statements. As an accountant, you can work for an accounting firm, such as Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG, which provide accounting services for very large organizations. You can also work for a company that does their accounting in-house.
In most cases, accountants may be required to earn a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credential, for which you need to complete 150 semester credit hours to become licensed. Typically these hours are achieved through completing a bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or business administration, and possibly through master’s degrees in these fields as well. Accountant are expected to have a strong attention to detail, have good analytical skills, and be great critical thinkers.
The average annual wage for accountants is $51,546, according to PayScale.
3. Commercial Banker
Commercial banking is related to the first thing you think of when you think of your own money – your checking and savings account, loans, debit and credit cards, and more, are all financial products offered by commercial or retail banks.
With a high school diploma, you can work as a bank teller, dealing directly with customers. With a bachelor’s degree in a business-related field such as finance, economics, or accounting, you can work as a loan officer, a role in which you review, authorize, and recommend personal and commercial loans to be approved. While most loan officers do have a college education, there is possibility to move from bank telling into higher positions with just a high school diploma. In fact, mortgage loan officers are only required to have a high school diploma, with a bachelor’s degree being preferred.
Commercial banking professionals typically have strong interpersonal skills, have finance and accounting knowledge, and are able to analyze and communicate relevant financial information to clients.
According to Salary.com, commercial bankers make an average of $25,621 to $96,047 a year across the various roles.
4 Investment Banker
Investment bankers work with companies to help facilitate a range of transactions. In many cases, investment bankers play a big role in bringing companies “public” through an Initial Public Offering (IPO). In this process, investment bankers value companies so they could later be sold at a fair share price on the stock market.
On a similar vein, investment banks play a large role in figuring out company value when companies acquire (or buy) other companies, are acquired (or sold) themselves, or merge with other companies.
Investment bankers can also work on a multitude of complex deals and transactions beyond just IPOs and M&As. Therefore, it’s important for investment bankers to be detail oriented, have strong time management skills, and are effective communicators to their clients. To become an investment banker, a bachelor’s degree in finance, business administration, statistics, economics, accounting, or other related fields is typically required.
The average annual salary of an investment banking analyst ranges from $68,000 to $250,000 according to PayScale.
5. Investing Roles: Venture Capital, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, and Asset Management
Investing goes far beyond buying stocks on Robinhood. Companies invest in other companies, small or large, as well as portfolios of stocks, bonds, ETFs, Index Funds, and more, all the time. Here are the most common type of investing roles out there:
- Venture Capital (VC) – Venture capitalists scout out and invest in early stage startups, becoming partial owners of the companies, in the hopes of making a profit once the startup is sold to another company or IPOs. A big part of working in VC is understanding how startups work, what a good trajectory for a startup is, and when its best to invest in a certain startup, if at all.
- Private Equity (PE) – Private equity firms also invest in companies, but PE firms typically focus on larger, well-established companies that have opportunity for growth. PE firms will usually buy a majority or complete ownership in a company, revamp the company’s operations and management, in the hopes of selling the company for a profit. The role values technical and analytical skillsets, as PE analysts are expected to perform very robust financial analyses of good opportunities and investments.
- Hedge Funds (HF) – Hedge funds are firms that invest pooled assets of high net worth individuals and institutional investors (like pension funds) into actively managed portfolios of stocks, bonds, and other assets. Hedge fund analysts make a profit by charging a fee and commission on their portfolio’s performance. That is, the more their portfolios make, the more money the hedge fund collects as profit. Hedge fund analysts are expected to have strong quantitative and technical skillsets, as well as a very good understanding of financial markets.
- Asset/Wealth Managers – Asset and wealth managers both work as advisors to high net worth individuals. Assets managers are more focused on maximizing investment profits while wealth managers are more interested in retaining their client’s wealth. They invest on behalf of their clients into a wide range of assets, such as stocks, bonds, real estate, and more. Their investments are often based on different client risk profiles (that is, how much their clients are anxious about taking on risky investments or not). They also often give financial advice outside of just investing. Because asset and wealth managers are often on the phone building trust with and reassuring their clients, strong interpersonal and communication skills, as well as a solid understanding of financial markets, are really important for these roles.
To get a role in investing, it’s typically expected you have a bachelor’s degree in a quantitative and business related field such as finance, accounting, economics, statistics, among others. Investing professionals may even have master’s degrees or PhD’s in such fields, or hold an MBA.
The average annual salary for investing professionals ranges from $72,699 to $120,000 a year, according to PayScale.
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Conclusion
Overall, finance is an extremely broad industry, with roles ranging widely in preferred skillsets, education levels, and daily tasks. In fact, there are many more roles in finance than mentioned, even those that don’t require a college degree.
Here are some of the best entry level roles in finance that don’t require a bachelor’s degree:
- Bank Teller
- Loan Officer
- Bookkeeping/Auditing
- Financial Clerks
- Bill and Account Collectors
- Enrolled Agent
- Insurance Sales Agent
- Real Estate Broker and Sales Agent
Since every individual and company deal with money on a daily basis, it’s no surprise that finance careers come with a huge range of skillsets, educational requirements, and salaries.
If you’re not yet certain that finance is the industry for you, read more about different industries and career types here.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
