In the finance world, there are various levels of degrees and careers you can choose depending on your specific interests. You may be wondering, what careers can you pursue with a finance degree?
A bachelor’s degree in finance will prepare you for entry-level work in the finance field, whereas a master’s degree in finance or a doctorate degree in finance will make you better suited for management or instructor roles in this field.
Bachelor’s Degree In Finance
A bachelor’s degree in finance is usually the most common requirement to pursue a career in finance. This degree takes four years to complete and prepares you with the basic fundamentals you will need as a finance professional.
While a bachelor’s degree in finance will build upon your finance skills, you will also be taught leadership and communication skills to fully round out your abilities.
Why Get A Bachelor’s Degree In Finance?
For many entry-level positions in the finance world, a bachelor’s degree in finance (or a similar business degree) is required to even be considered. A bachelor’s degree will prepare you with the basic foundation you will need in order to succeed in a finance career.
Obtaining your bachelor’s degree in finance also allows you to further your education to advance your career later on if you choose to do so.
Master’s Degree In Finance
After completing a bachelor’s degree in finance, you are qualified to pursue a master’s degree in finance. This degree takes two years to complete and expands upon the fundamentals of finance by focusing on specialised areas of finance.
Why Get A Master’s Degree In Finance?
If you really want an advantage on your competition in the finance job market, a master’s degree in finance will set you apart from your bachelor’s degree counterparts. A master’s degree in finance will better prepare you for specific areas within the finance field such as trading, investments or risk management positions.
Doctorate Degree In Finance
A doctorate degree in finance allows you to become a financial researcher and/or financial instructor, as well as allow you to be qualified for almost any position in the financial world. A doctorate degree in finance takes an additional four to five years to complete, after obtaining your bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Most doctorate degree graduates in finance will continue on to make an annual salary of over $180,000 in the professional world.
Why Get A Doctorate Degree In Finance?
If you are seeking an instructional or research-based position in finance, a doctorate degree in finance will best serve you. While you will be prepared for any role within the finance field, many who choose to pursue a doctorate degree in finance are interested in selective research or instructional roles.
What Careers Can You Pursue With A Finance Degree?
Careers in finance are often a popular choice in that they can offer a high paying position shortly after completing your degree. The different opportunities for working within the finance field are vast, with a multitude of specialties to choose from.
Depending on your level of education and specific interest, there is a finance career for you.
1.Finance Planner
Average salary of a finance planner is $127,990. A finance planner works with clients to create plans that ensure an individual’s current and future finances are in order. They discuss strategies for investing and savings in order to reach a client’s goal.
Typically, financial planners work within a local or national firm and should look into obtaining the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) certification. Finance managers will be incharge of the investments that the company is investing in. They will also be incharge of some of the expenditures and making sure what the company is buying is going to give them a decent return.
You will be overlooking some of the accounting, financial analysts and investment analysts. You will not only just be in managerial positions, they will also work with higher-ups in the company. Coming up with different plans and strategies is one of their primary jobs because you will be seeing what you can do from a finance perspective that would help this company reach its goals.
It’s a very important job because it guides the finances and pushes it along towards the company’s end goals.
2.Investment Banking
Average salary of an investment banker is $96,543. Investment is a high-intensity field that involves selling and trading corporate securities, as well as provides insightful advice to corporations and individuals. The responsibilities of an investment banker may also include trading stocks and bounds on the stock market.
You can also become an investment banking analyst. As an investment banking analyst, you will be working for an investment bank and you will have clients. You will have to know what are the financial goals of your clients, how risky do they want to be, what’s the kind of return they are expecting.
After taking this information you go out and analyse what would be better to put together in a portfolio for this particular client. Investment banking is a very popular field for finance majors and economics majors.
3.Hedge Fund Manager
An average salary of a hedge fund manager is $103,140. Unregulated private investment funds are typically described as hedge funds. Working with the type of investment provides an array of possible jobs ranging from financial traders, analysts, compliance officers, and portfolio managers.
You will be managing a specific hedge fund. Huge fund is an investment portfolio open to few accredited investors. You will be working with accredited investors and you will be making different decisions. Your goal here is to get the highest return possible and beat the market.
You will be incharge of different assets making that portfolio. There will be a bit pressure on you because oftentimes you will be dealing not with a lot of money but also with wealthy individuals who want to make a good return on their money. It is a rewarding job with a true finance position
4.Controller
An average salary of a controller is $99,931. Controller is someone who is in charge of all ‘all things’ accounting when it comes to a specific company. Whether it’s about basic or just general ledger stuff, everything gets recorded properly. When taxes roll around if they are getting audited, controllers make sures that everything runs smoothly.
It is a pretty stressful position because the accounting of a company is very important. It’s very important that everything about this is accurate, when auditing comes around and you need to make sure that everything is being recorded properly.
Accounting is a crucial backbone to the finances of a company and the controller is someone who needs to know all of it. You will need to do all of it and make sure everything is up to code.
5.Actuary
An average salary of an Actuary is $97,776. The job of an actuary is to access the financial ongoings of a certain risk. It usually goes on with insurance companies because they are insuring different scenarios. Whether it be car insurance, home insurance, life insurance, these insurance agencies need to know what is the risk of this happening and how much damage is that going to cost financially.
Something along the line like fire or flood insurance, they would need to know how often houses flood and how much damage it will cost financially. Actuaries need this data to accurately prive their insurance models. If you ever see prices for insurance and how much it cost, know that there are a team of actuaries behind it.
A lot of research goes into assessing the cost and price because not only do you need to cover that financial cost but you also need the company to make money. Actuaries are very important with companies that deal, specifically, with risk. That’s why they are so important to places like insurance companies that are in the business of risk.
6.Quantitative Risk Analysis
An average salary of a Quantitative Risk Analyst is $93,123. They use mathematical or complex models in order to analyze the risk of a certain financial decision. They will be taking a lot of data and turning it into something that can be interpreted. They use models to assess that a certain company would be taking on.
The whole idea of being an analyst is that you will be looking at a particular investment or decision and deciding how risky that is going to be. There is also the flipside where you will be creating systems/investments that you can analyze.
When it comes to big financial institutions, whether it be hedge funds, or big banks, they need to know how risky it is going to be. These people want it to be pretty accurate because there’s usually a lot of money at stake. So, Quantitative Risk Analysts will create these systems which usually involve a lot of math.
They will be able to assess the risk and build systems to help them make decisions in the future.
7.Sales & Trading Analyst
An average salary of a sales & trading analyst is $89,361. Some people think of this as two different jobs but it can be done by the same person. From the sales point of view, you will likely be calling institutional investors or companies entities that pull money to invest in things.
On the trading side, when you will be actively trading, buying and selling different investments, you will have clients that you will be working with, trying to find the perfect times to enter this specific stock or investment and exit strategies as well.
This is a full-scale job meaning you are seeing both the sales and trading side. For a lot of hedge funds and investment banks, this is unbelievably important because this is the “lifeblood” of companies.
8.Real Estate Agent
An average salary of a real estate agent is $83,535. Commercial and residential real estate financial careers work with clients to plan out the best strategy to fund the purchase of a family home, office location or shopping center. Some potential job paths for financial real estate include mortgage brokers, mortgage companies and life insurance professionals.
Rather than dealing with single-family houses and single-family residences, commercial real estate agents deal with businesses. As an agent, you will be incharge of the best office buildings. Usually your clients will be businesses and you are going to be either selling them or finding places for these businesses.
This involves a lot more research into the market than a normal real estate agent would. You will be looking at a lot of data from the local area and decide where is the best place to have this business go or the best shopping center possible and where are its customers, how will they find these businesses.
You will not only look at local data but national data as well. You will be seeing where their ideal customers are, how can you get in front of them. This is where you will use a financial degree because there is a lot of data involved and you have likely taken a lot of statistics courses and financial modelling courses in general.
9.Private Equity Analyst
An average salary of a Private Equity Analyst is $81,092. This person will analyze private companies, seeing if they want to invest in them. They will usually be running specific portfolios. They will have a private fund that is open to limited partners.
Private equities deal with private companies so these aren’t publicly traded companies. This isn’t an open fund that anyone can invest in. There are limited partners invested in this private fund. The analyst will go and look for a normal stock or even a public company if you were just an investment analyst.
You will be looking at the cash flow of businesses, future projections or is this something that you want to grow and if you would want to invest in. You are the analyst that is going to look over all these things and decide if you want to add it to the portfolio.
10.Insurance Agent
Average salary of an insurance agent is $37,667. Working within the insurance field allows you to explore many different aspects of finance within one occupation. You can work as an insurance sales representative, a customer service specialist or you can work to calculate risks and probabilities of financial trends to help your clients with their financial objectives.
11.Public Accounting
An average salary of public accounting is $63,907. Another diverse career for an accounting major is public accounting. A public accountant works with both individual clients and corporations to maintain their financial transactions, audit their records and prepare income tax returns.
Typically, a public accountant may work in small or large firms depending on their clientele.
12.Venture Capitalist
An average salary of a venture capitalist is $92.406. A career in venture capital explores the potential expansion of financial opportunities for small or start-up companies.
As a venture capitalist, you will determine if your firm will make an investment in these types of companies in hopes that their stock will become publicly traded on the stock market.
13.Chief Financial Officer
An average salary of a chief financial officer is $128,468. A chief financial officer (CFO) is responsible for tracking profits and deficits of a company, then developing a strategy to maintain success financially.
One key aspect of a chief financial officer is their managerial skills and often oversees a team of employees.
14.Commercial Banking
Average salary of commercial banking is $92,983. A career in commercial banking provides a variety of financial services such as saving accounts, checking accounts and multiple loan options.
There is a lot of room for growth within commercial banking as many begin their careers as bank tellers and move up to become branch managers.
