Careers in Finance: Options and Required Skills

This article discusses the options available for a career in finance, specifically financial analyst and accountant roles. It also covers the necessary skills for success in these positions, including in-depth knowledge of the company, analytical skills, and understanding of economic and quantitative concepts. The article concludes with a recommendation for pursuing an accounting career due to its versatility and importance in all sectors.

Running head: CAREERS IN FINANCE
Careers in finance
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Table of Contents
Option of financial career with finance education.....................................................................2
Required skills to be successful in the positions........................................................................2
Recommendation........................................................................................................................3
Reference....................................................................................................................................5

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Option of financial career with finance education
1. Financial analyst
Financial analyst is the most popular role under the financial service industry. Finance
analyst provides guidance and advice to various companies regarding investment decisions. A
financial analyst can work both as senior as well as junior positions in the company and it
leads to various other career opportunities in the finance industry. The financial analyst can
work for investment firms, banks, investment banks, insurance companies and individual
companies. Main task associated with the financial analysts are preparing the action plan for
the purpose of future investment and preparing the data as per the company’s financial trends.
However, the financial analyst must have good knowledge of the software programs for
compiling all the required data (Pinho, Madaleno & Santos, 2013).
2. Accountant
Career in accounting provides the opportunity for working with almost all types of
industries. The compensation differs as per the education level, specializations and
certifications. Accountants are the integral part of the public, private and the non-profit
companies. The accountants can work in private as well as public sector, under the
government sector or under the small or large business sector or at the individual level. They
can do various tasks started from auditing to tax filling to financial planning and budgeting.
Accountants are more interested in exact and specific data regarding the daily operations,
taxes and financial accuracy (Edmonds et al., 2013).

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Required skills to be successful in the positions
In addition to the qualifications and knowledge of corporate finance the person must
have the below mentioned skills –
 In-depth knowledge of the company
 Analytical knowledge
 Must be able to construct the financial models
 Good understanding of economic and quantitative concepts
 Solid analytical skills
 Understanding and analytical knowledge of the company’s business (Brown, Wei &
Wermers, 2013).
Further, as the career in financial sector is rapidly growing and offers wide variety of
the career opportunities this field deals with various important market sectors and requires the
following skills –
 Good communication skills
 Professional responsibility
 Cognitive knowledge
 Practice and experience in the respective field (Simkin, Norman & Rose, 2014)
Recommendation
From the above analysis among the 2 career options the option of Accountant is
recommended. The most attractive feature of this career option is that the person can be work
as both junior as well as senior accountant. Further, the accountant can work in almost all the
sectors as all the companies require accountant to handle their finance related tasks. The
accountant is responsible for stating the current financial status of the company and on the

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contrary, the financial analyst only looks into the past performance of the company.
However, it depends on the personal choice that whether the person likes to gather data for
assuring accuracy or gathering data for making financial recommendations. If the person
likes to gather data for assuring accuracy he or shall chose the accounting profession. On the
contrary, if the person likes to gather data for making financial recommendations he or she
shall chose the financial analyst profession

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Reference
Brown, N. C., Wei, K. D., & Wermers, R. (2013). Analyst recommendations, mutual fund
herding, and overreaction in stock prices. Management Science, 60(1), 1-20.
Edmonds, T. P., McNair, F. M., Olds, P. R., & Milam, E. E. (2013). Fundamental financial
accounting concepts. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Pinho, C., Madaleno, M., & Santos, H. (2013). The Usefulness of Financial Analysts'
Reports: A Content Analysis. International Journal Of Management, 31(2), 631-648.
Simkin, M. G., Norman, C. S., & Rose, J. M. (2014). Core concepts of accounting
information systems. John Wiley & Sons.

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