Finance Administrator Job Role: Skills, Knowledge, and Career Prospects

This report delves into the finance profession, exploring the impact of 21st-century trends on the job market. It analyzes essential skills, knowledge, and experience required for success in this field. The report also examines a specific job advertisement for a Finance Administrator position, evaluating its requirements and how they align with the broader trends in the industry. The analysis highlights the importance of digital skills, analytical abilities, and strong communication skills in today's finance landscape.

CW1 - CAREER RESEARCH REPORT
(Task B: The Report)
MG410 Career Viewpoint
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Executive Summary
The current paper has highlighted the profession of finance and the way this has job occupation
has been affected in 21st century. Both primary and secondary research analysis have been
conducted within this paper. Based on the researched data, prime skills, knowledge have been
discussed. In fact, the general trends within this sector have been reviewed. A job advertisement
has been provided at the end of this report.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Analysis and Application.................................................................................................................5
Evaluation........................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
Reference List................................................................................................................................12
Appendix........................................................................................................................................14
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Introduction
The appropriate career selection will lead one to much higher heights with respect to success and
happiness. Career planning can intimidate few individuals who are not sure regarding the way,
which would like for taking decades down. Among the accountability of possessing fixed goals
and the motivation, I will get while I attain my career growth objectives. My career plan is a
chance for increase my true potential. In order to carry forward this study, I have chosen finance
as the profession. This study will highlight the general trends that may influence on my selected
profession and experience, knowledge or skills, which are needed to survive in this.
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Analysis and Application General trends which will impact on your chosen profession
As per Marinescu(2017), the role of finance is experiencing a prime evolution. The business
environment of today, finance companies are becoming more elevated as corporation
progressively depend on the strategic and financial prowess of the financial leader. At present,
finance professional is facing an array of challenges, responsibilities and new risks, from
maintaining an internationally diversified business for overcoming new technology challenges.
Figure 1: General trends affecting finance role
o Financial stability and globalisation
Financial crisis can cause in the permanent loss of capital and these have increased inequality
and a devastating impact on poverty. However, Scheuplein and Kahl(2017) have added that the
new generation of workers is forcing companies for rethinking the way work is conducted, the
challenge of big data is contributing business leader with access to more data rather than before.
Globalisation has opened up new risks and opportunities for business.
o Digital is making the skill disconnect
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Finance transformation refers that the finance may face competency and skill gaps in sections
ranging from data manipulation and data interpretation to vendor management and IT
fulfilment. A major lack of digital competency in finance may rapidly influence the ability of a
company to take good decisions. As per the study of Taylor-Smithet al. (2019), better able to
drive and make decisions, which assist a company to react to the digital shifts, involving the
accelerated step of changing within operating situations, more co-operative decision-making
model, growing part of automation and emerged dependence on data.
o Demands for decision-ready information
As contrasting to one-size-fits-all centralised data supremacy model, permit supremacy to be
circulated of information owners where suitable. It assists the function of finance to optimise
information for decision-willingness as conflicting to precision and accuracy. Thus, finance
needs to balance the requirement for accuracy with the requirement for making a great volume of
information present for decision-making that is a new power for most of the finance team.
o AI revolution has started
From the report of Business Transformation, it has been studied that Artificial Intelligence will
transform or optimise each task in the finance. They need to be conscious of the way this may
influence their operation, make their team with new skill set as well as explore the investment
essential for AI (biznesstransform.com, 2018). However, from the primary sources, this is also
evident that the abilities of digital technologies to shift finance function with enriched decision-
making and planning, better cost management and streamlined procedures are severe to reaching
business challenges of today(Refer to Appendix 1).
o Robotic process automation is driving internal managements at challenge
As the RPA and different digital technologies become commonplace, the finance requires
developing the appropriate internal controls, allowing against financial reporting challenge
without minimising the frequency of application. The skills / knowledge and experience required
o Five personal skills
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From the primary results, this is evident that in some sectors, sparkling talent mixed with real-
life instances is sufficient to land the expected job. In fact, most of the financial companies,
including the job advertisement of Dunhill Financial, looking for graduates, mainly for the
professions, which deal with great reams of data, will seek for confirmation of analytical
skills(Refer to Appendix 1).
However, for aspiring finance and accounting employees, oral and written communication
skills are crucial. Juntunen(2018) has claimed that most of the organisations select applicant’s
knowledge, in comparison with the possible recruits regurgitate what they have studied. Proper
interpersonal skill may make one greatly agreeable for working, as well as will instil of support
and trust in colleagues and clients.
The capability of making informed decisions rapidly is the skill, which is greatly sought in this
profession. There is restricted spare time for weighing up all the feasible applications of the
decision-in doing.
Mathematics skill will evident to be greatly useful in several sections of finance. The candidate
who is employed in the utilisation of equations and statistics in determining financial data is
mainly needed.
Being capable to carry out across to the specific way of understanding is no simple undertaking.
Persuasiveness is the skills, which will be greatly sought after as well as rewarded by managers.
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Figure 2: Major five personal skills
o Two areas of expertise and knowledge
Accounting knowledge involves the knowledge essential for recording accounting transaction as
well as a robust insight of the appropriate accounting regulations. From the interview report, this
has been understood that one may or may not be organising budgets or financial statement
directly. Though one does not require being a specialist accountant, however, one will require
being wholly comfortable discussing and reading financial statement for giving financial advice.
As stated by Deming and Kahn (2018), Technological knowledge is mandatory for a candidate
who is seeking for finance profession. Contemporary technology creates this much simpler and
faster for finding, sorting and processing the huge information one requires for working in
accounting or finance. Thus, one candidates need to know that technology for using this, as the
present tools continue for changing and evolving, a detailed list of technical skill in this
procession would be rapidly out of date.
Figure 3: Two areas of knowledge
Evaluation
Based on the job advertisement post at Jump Work, where Dunhill Financial has advertised for
their recruitment, they are seeking for graduate finance administrator. They are looking for the
entry scale assistant for joining their team, having either little experience of work or a recent
graduate with an interest within the financial advisory business. For this particular job role, they
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AccountingknowledgeTechnologicalknowledge

are requiring some special skills or knowledge. Some of the required skills are MS Office,
Advanced Excel, Communication skills, Client on-boarding and administration (jump.work,
2020). In Dunhill Financial, they are offering full-time employee with £10.00 to £12.00 per hour
salary. There are some common responsibilities, which one candidate needs to deal with while
employing as a finance administrator (jump.work, 2020). These are as follows:
 I need to help the advisor based on the requirement.
 I must make changes, arrange and organise to the meetings of the manager
with both external and internal contacts.
 In fact, this is essential for me to have strong organisational ability and
skills for juggling a continually changing work pressure.
 The capability for communicating effectively and confidently at all scales
is mandatory.
 Moreover, I am liable to client relationship management and client on-
boarding management(Refer to Appendix 2). Related to the choice of sector
I am a fresher and Dunhill is offering recent graduate candidate, which is perfect role to acquire.
In fact, I feel that my verified record of accomplishment resulting multi-operational team makes
an outstanding match for their job needs. This role excites me, as I like the concept of assisting to
establish technology innovation services as well as I understand I could begin delivering
outcomes since Day 1. Preference of the job opportunity
This is one of my expected job role, as from this job opportunity, I can learn about my career
goals within finance platform and this position of Finance Administrator actually fits into my
plan. I have researched about Dunhill Financial and found that they are offering personalised
solution and independent advice for their customers related to their individual condition. Their
advisors have a great breadth of experience employing in huge multi-national companies and this
will assist one to feel secure in an atmosphere of confidence, discretion and trust
(dunhillfinancial.com, 2020). Thus, this image is positively a factor and I would be proud to
employ for such organisation with such a long background of leadership within the industry.
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Moreover, a good friend of my family has been employing in their corporate finance for last
three years and she informed me that their culture backings development and learning on the
work as well as they reward hard work. Moreover, I have gone through an online article
regarding the new CEO of Dunhill Financial and the renewed aim of the company on technology
development as well as innovation. I ruminate myself an innovator and I would like to work for
this company, which is leading the sector’s future.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that career development needs to attempt with the objectives one
sets and where one envisions own career going. This entails compartmentalised phases organise
as norms in Finance sector, for which one works hard. This comes within the form of promotion
from single role to a greater one related to the experience and performance.
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Reference List
biznesstransform.com, 2018. Technologies are transforming the finance function. Business
Transformation. Available at: https://www.biznesstransform.com/technologies-are-transforming-
the-finance-function/#:~:text=Digital%20technologies%20and%20their%20ability,to
%20meeting%20today's%20business%20challenges.&text=Advanced%20analytics%20for
%20overall%20business%20operations%20to%20uncover%20hidden%20growth
%20opportunities. [Accessed on 15 September 2020]
brightnetwork.co.uk, 2020. Which Five Skills Do You Need for a Career in Finance? Available
at: https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/career-path-guides/financial-services/top-skills/which-five-
skills-do-you-need-career-finance/ [Accessed on 15 September 2020]
Deming, D. and Kahn, L.B., 2018. Skill requirements across firms and labor markets: Evidence
from job postings for professionals. Journal of Labor Economics, 36(S1), pp.S337-S369.
dunhillfinancial.com, 2020. About Us. Available at: https://www.dunhillfinancial.com/
[Accessed on 15 September 2020]
Hogan, S.C., and Sher, A., 2020. Finance 2025: Digital transformation in finance. Available at:
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/finance-transformation/articles/finance-digital-
transformation-for-cfos.html. [Accessed on 15 September 2020]
jump.work, 2020. Graduate Finance Administrator. Available at:
https://jump.work/campaign/c6de2f74/view?back=/jobs/in/london&utm_campaign=google_jobs
_apply&utm_source= [Accessed on 15 September 2020]
Juntunen, R., 2018. The experience of the candidate in the recruitment process: a case study of
Finnish P&C Insurance.
Marinescu, I., 2017. The general equilibrium impacts of unemployment insurance: Evidence
from a large online job board. Journal of Public Economics, 150, pp.14-29.
Scheuplein, C. and Kahl, J., 2017. Do company builders create jobs? Examining the rise of
incubation finance in Germany. Examining the Rise of Incubation Finance in Germany
(November 15, 2017).
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Taylor-Smith, E., Smith, S., Fabian, K., Berg, T., Meharg, D. and Varey, A., 2019, July.
Bridging the Digital Skills Gap: Are computing degree apprenticeships the answer?.
In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer
Science Education (pp. 126-132).
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Appendix
Appendix 1: Primary sources (Interview)
Questions Responses
How far do you agree that digital
innovation is influencing the finance
sector?
Digital transformation has transformed the financial
services and customers can be assumed more than even-
handed a mobile banking application or any credit card
for paying their bills.
According to you, what skill does a
finance job role possess mainly?
I believe that analytical skill is the most essential skill,
which a candidate must have. This is the skill based on
which we hire or recruit candidate in our enterprise.
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Appendix 2: Job Advertisement
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