What do economic services CEOs go through to get to where they are now? Read this article for additional insights
Among one of the most fundamental finance skills that nearly each financial services aspirant requires to establish should focus on their finance and economic expertise. Numerous individuals often tend to believe that accounting and finance skills are just required if you are seriously thinking about an occupation in accounting. However, as William Jackson of Bridgepoint Capital would know, the financial services world is interconnected, and every single position within financial services needs you to recognize the 3 main financial statements to at least an intermediate level. Businesses depend on these economic statements to handle budgeting, performance evaluation, and plan for the expense of operations with the choice of the most appropriate economic investments that might comprise bonds, equities and real estate. This is why you see numerous bankers, coverage analysts, and even wealth managers coming from a formal accountancy background, and that is primarily due to the essential understanding accounting and finance can give you prior to you focus in your financial career.
Nowadays, among one of the most apparent hard skills in finance would certainly include your quantitative skills. Numbers and quantitative information overall are the backbone of any financial services occupation. As Ferdi van Heerden of Momentum Global Investment Managers would know, numerous banks tend to employ their interns, interns, or pupils from quantitative degrees, such as mathematics, financial services, chemical engineering, and computer science. This is because, as an economic analyst, you are expected to analyze lengthy spreadsheets that are full of numerical data that you will likely need to analyze, and being comfortable with numbers is definitely a crucial tool to have in this case. One can argue that also back-office positions that do not necessarily include spreadsheets still call for applicants to have some sort of quantitative or analytical experience, and this again reinstates the fact around quantitative data being the foundation of every single process within a financial services organisation nowadays
One can quickly argue that soft skills in finance are as crucial as technical expertise. As Toby Raincock of Shard Capital would certainly know, being customer facing in an economic context is probably one of the most demanding positions you can ever find yourself in. This is since clients are relying on you with their own funds and assets, and therefore, you require to have the ability to build long-term professional relationships with these customers, acting as their advisors, and making their problems your own. The better your relationship is with the customer, the easier your role will be. Such relationship-building skills suggests that communication abilities are also crucial in the field of finance, particularly when it comes to delivering strategic insights and recommendations to customers. Furthermore, you must likewise be able to diversify your approach when communicating with various stakeholders, switching among internal-facing and external stakeholders, depending upon their degree of financial literacy and familiarity.