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Breaking into finance
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So you want to work in finance! Then this column is for you. During the upcoming weeks, we’ll explore the various areas of finance and the different types of careers available, from investment banking to quantitative research analysis. We’ll talk about how to get an interview, what skills are needed, how to prepare for your interview, and how to handle those tough interview questions. If you’re a career changer or already working in finance, you’ll find advice here as well. I’ll also include helpful tips and links (you can’t work in finance without being an Excel wizard!) in each article.
Tip #1 - If you want to work in finance, you need to know why you want to work in finance. Sounds obvious, right? One of the first questions you can expect to be asked on a finance interview is: Why finance? Oftentimes candidates struggle with this question, but it is one of the most important questions to get right.
Think of it this way. If you are a sports fan, and I asked you about the sport you followed, you’d probably be able to speak in knowledgeable detail and with passion about players, their statistics, the team’s prospects, and maybe even some history of the sport. This is how you have to approach your preparation to your finance interview. For example, if you are going for an interview in investment banking, be prepared to talk about some recent transactions. Why did they make strategic and financial sense? How were they structured? What are the trends in the industry?
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AP Photo: Wall Street
Tip #2 It's important to continue your education whether it be by formal means or just by keeping up with current events, so read everything you can about the industry. If you really want to work in finance, you are already following the markets and perhaps reading the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and the Economist. And you can't just read these papers once in a while, but on a daily basis, whether online or the paper version. In the Financial Times ("the FT"), you can read interviews with people in business every Monday ("The Monday Interview") and these frequently involve movers and shakers in finance. Also, the FT's site has free short video courses, usually accompanied by free papers and even downloadable books. One of these courses is on global financial volatility and is taught by Dr. Robert Engle, Nobel Prize winner for creation of the GARCH model. If these type of things excite you, then finance might be for you! See http://www.ft.com/businesseducation/stern/
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