What should be my first step?
Hello everyone,
I am completely new to finance so I wonder what should my first step be.
I come from legal background (have a bachelor and two masters; had an internship in a law firm abroad, then worked for several months in another law firm, mostly business and corporate law) but found out law was not for me. I also have a master degree in environmental science and did internships in some NGOs in this sector.
I realised that I really want to do finance, I think it´s very interesting to understand how money works and how it influences basically everything around us. I still don´t know about all the job possibilities, but from what I researched, I believe I could start as a financial analyst?
However, I understand that I am in a big disadvantage in comparison to people who have studied finance and did multiple internships in banks, etc.
So I wanted to ask you all for some advice, what do you recommend me to do? What steps to take to get to that good financial job?
I was considering doing some of those Financial Modelling courses from either Wall Street Prep, CFI or Breaking into Wall Street. To me CFI looks like really high standard but obviously I don´t know nothing about this, so maybe if you could give me some feedback. Do you think these courses would actually help me to get a job? (in London)
Also, please can you recommend me either some book or some other resource/s for financial terms? There is a lot of lingo which I don´t understand but obviously is very important. Any recommendations for some resources that would cover this?
Thank you all!
Anyone?
Hi Proctor! You've got an interesting case. FMVA by CFI is a great course to start with - I'm doing it too. However, only FMVA would not suffice to break into a career in finance. Also, you'll have to be specific about where you want to end up in finance - there's quite a few things like valuations (which again has subgroups like real estate, complex securities, etc), financial modelling, restructuring, equity research, M&As, etc.
Based on this, I would search entry level jobs and see what are the things that these jobs require. For e.g. I've seen mostly finance jobs saying they need someone who is an ACA/CFA or working towards an either. I would then reach out to these recruiters and find out if your existing profile can be considered. Based on their responses you'd know if you have a chance or not. If not, I would then find people on LinkedIn who are where I want to be and find out what they think are necessary things for you to have.
Now you know what you need, and you need to start working towards that. FMVA is a great course and has some valuable content, but recruiters won't see an online course as a job-ready skill. You'll have to practice modelling and valuations on your own to get a grip on these so you can put that on your CV as a real skill. You'll need to work on being commercially aware.
Based on my experience, key would be an ACA/CFA degree. I've seen most of the jobs saying that. Depending on your interest, you can have a think if you want to/can do any of those because both of them are time consuming - ACA even more. I would suggest US CPA if you want to do an accounting degree - you can finish it within a year with some hard work and you don't need to do any apprenticeship like in the case of ACA/ICAS.
I would work really hard to learn all the skills of finance - understanding and analysing financial statements, modelling, valuations, etc. etc. because it's difficult and rare to get a chance to interview in a finance role with a non-finance background and when I get mine, I would want to make it count.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!
Thank you very much! That was actually very helpful.
My original thoughts about my potential career path in finance was Green/Sustainable finance. I thought about it as a combination of my legal and environmental background. But I lack the experience/knowledge in finance, so that´s what I was looking for, but was not sure in which role to begin, i.e. what branch of finance would provide me with good base for that direction. Maybe if you could give me some overview of the main areas/possibilities in finance, that would be great (right now it is still a bit chaotic to me).
Hi Proctor! That is a very interesting career choice. Unfortunately, I do now have much knowledge of the various paths in sustainable finance because it's a niche market. From my understanding it would be about advising or investing in companies that are in green sectors like renewable energy.From how UK is progressing, it appears to me that it will get quite big over the years and should be a great place to be in the future.I would still suggest you to try the generic finance jobs to break into finance as such first. After that you can carve out your niche. In my view, the best place to be in would be one of the following:
1) Financial Modelling - most of the large accounting firms (Big8) have a department that only works in building or providing Assurance to financial models for different transactions. Modelling is a basic and very important skill so it would be a great first step. Look at BDO and Grant Thornton careers page.
2) Equity research - a bit difficult to crack into without prior experience and modelling experience but again, helps you to become a sector specialist and focus on analysing companies for different goals.
3) Corporate Finance M&A - again I would advise look at mid size accounting firms rather than banks as they're more considerate and flexible. They also spend time on training people do it's a win-win. Being in this helps you broaden your exit options and again, going forward you can carve your niche into companies in say, renewable energy and move to a larger firm.As you're only breaking into finance first, keep your options broad. Even if you get something very different from what you want but can help you build skills to where you want to be, then take it. E.g you get into a mining corporate finance team - you still learn modelling, valuations, networking and project management that you can leverage and make your case for moving to green finance later.I hope that gives you some more direction. Please feel free to message me if you have any more questions, very happy to help :)
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