Careers in Finance-- Career Options
What can you do with a major in Finance?
Choosing Your Career Path
Traditionally, careers in finance have broken down into three broad categories: Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, and Financial Institutions/Banking. With each of these areas there are a large range of careers paths you can pursue. Recent industry hot buttons, such as corporate governance, and the expanding globalization of the marketplace, have resulted in shifting definitions and realignment of some of these traditional paths, changed the competency and personality profiles for individuals pursing these careers, and created new, often cross-discipline opportunities.
The following sites will provide you with some good background on these many choices:
- This page is a few years old so some of the data is not current;
however, most of the information remains very relevant.
- Corporate Finance
- Investment Banking
- Money Management
- Real Estate
- Financial Planning
- Insurance
- Commercial Banking
For each career path, the page includes the following information:
- Overview
- Competencies and personality types
- Range of career possibilities
- Salaries
- Links to additional sources, including associations, books, networking outlets
- Highlights of trends in the industry
- Top Firms
- Job Listings (great way to glean current market demand, what employers are looking for, job titles, etc.)
What Can I Do With a Major in Finance?
- Very useful, succinct tutorial; sections include:
- Relevant skills for a Finance major
- Sample positions
- Types of hiring institutions
- Useful books
- Relevant job websites
Finance Careers, Business Career Center
- Good descriptions of different career paths.
Bloomberg.com Careers: The Best Place to Look for Financial Employment
- Includes list of who's hiring and company profiles; coverage is uneven.
- Great for scanning current openings in finance and accounting; glean useful information about current job openings, position titles and responsibilities, desirable competences and personality types, jargon.
- Caveat Emptor = Vault.com's publications are current, relevant, and very popular. Use them, but don't limit yourself to this resource (or its competitor, Wetfeet.com). Everyone you are competing with is reading them (including the companies they profile) - and they are absolutely not the only and not necessarily the best resource for the level of business intelligence that you will need to present yourself as an engaging applicant for a job.
- All publications are available for downloading in .pdf from the vault.com web site
- Career Guide to Investment Management
- Guide to Finance Interviews
- Career Guide to Accounting
- Career Guide to Investment Banking
- Career Guide to Venture Capital
- Guide to Top Finance Companies
- Caveat Emptor = Wetfeet.com's publications are current, relevant, nd very popular. Use them, but don't limit yourself to this resource (or its competitor, Vault.com). Everyone you are competing with is reading them (including the companies they profile) - and they are absolutely not the only and not necessarily the best resource for the level of business intelligence that you will need to present yourself as an engaging applicant for a job.
- All publications are available for downloading in .pdf from
the vault.com web site
- Careers in Investment Banking
- Careers in Asset Management and Retail Brokerage
- Careers in Accounting
- Careers in Real Estate
- Careers in Venture Capital
- Investment Banking Interviews: Beat the Street
- Killer Investment Banking Resumes
Additional Reading
The Harvard Business Review's Guide to Careers in Finance
- CAREERREF HG65. F56
The Fast Track: The Insider's Guide to Winning Jobs in Management Consulting, Investment Banking, and Securities Trading
- CAREERREF HD69 .C6 N33 1997
Salaries
Elite Financial Staffing Atlanta Salary Survey (2003)
- Annual salary survey for the Atlanta MSA
- Covers both Public Accounting and Private Accounting sectors
- Postions include: Audit, Tax, EDP Consultant, Credit Analysis, Treasury, Financial Analysis
- Levels: Staff, Senior, Manager, Director
RobertHalf/Accountemps Salary Guide
- This annual salary guide outlines compensation and hiring trends
for all levels of accounting and finance professionals, including
breakdowns by region.
- The publication is free; order a print copy directly from the RobertHalf web site.
- Salaries are reported for a range of positions, broken down by level of experience, size of firm, and percentage of change from previous year.
- Links to recent articles on careers, salaries, and related topics
- Salary Reports Section
- Salary Tables for:
- Accounting and Finance Professional by City
- Professionals in Audit, Tax and Management Services
- Corporate Accountants, Analysts, and Credit Managers
- Accounting/Financial Professionals
- Finance and Accounting Executives
- Corporate Finance Executives by Company Sales Volume
- Accounting/Financial Professionals by Level and Field
- Search salary database for corporate finance
- Select job title combined with location (zip code or state) for local/regional salaries plus additional salarydata
- Salary Tables for:
- CareerJournal
Salary Home Page
- Access to salary trends and data for a large range of industries
- Related articles on trends, negotiating, hot issues, etc.
Abbott, Langer,
& Associates
Salary & Benefits, Survey Report Data and Free Summary Data
- Data taken from: Compensation the Accounting/Financial Field,
20th ed. (Dec. 2001)
- Click on link to Free Summary Data to view table with positions and average salaries for 2001
- Click on Participating Organizations to view a list of the firms that contributed data to the survey
- Home page includes links to similar data for other industries:
Manufacturing, Non-Profit, Consulting, Engineering, Executive
Management, Human Resources, Benefits, Information Technology,
Market/Sales, and others
