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What's the average starting salary for a new finance graduate and how easy it is to find a good paying job?
 

tahak93's picture
(Chimp, 11
 
Points)
 on 1/30/13 at 4:48pm

Finance is my passion, but when I first went to college I decided my major to be management information systems because there's good money in it. But lately I haven't been feeling very happy with what I've done. And at first what kept me from choosing finance is because according to what I know finding a good job in finance is pretty competitive. So would I find a job with a good pay easily with a degree in finance or should I double major in finance and MIS?

Tags:
D M's picture

First of all, wrong

O
 
Points)
 on 1/30/13 at 5:32pm

First of all, wrong forum.

Second of all, there's a search function.

Third of all, really?

"WSO is like the 300 for anti spamage. None shall pass." -happypantsmcgee
"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer

hopingtobreakin's picture

A) your degree itself won't

HF
(Baboon, 111
 
Points)
 on 1/30/13 at 6:43pm

A) your degree itself won't really mean much

B) Your going to have to network.

C) You probably will get a better pay working as an IT guy or systems engineer than in finance for most roles, considering how difficult it is to get a decent role.

pplstuff's picture

You don't say want you want

CD
(Orangutan, 296
 
Points)
 on 1/30/13 at 7:12pm

You don't say want you want to do in "finance," so I'll assume f500 corp fin (because who really gets IBD offers?).

Assuming you majored in Finance and landed an entry-level role as a financial analyst you might expect $45-55k (if you've had relevant internships you could come in higher, I would say this is the 20-80 percentile). Keep in mind corp fin roles are largely accounting based - so you should probably just major in accounting (keep CPA options open).

Why not switch to computer science and earn 60+ starting?

I'll do what I can to help ya'll. But, the game's out there, and it's play or get played.

WhiteLightning's picture

pplstuff knows what he is

(Monkey, 31
 
Points)
 on 1/30/13 at 7:30pm

pplstuff knows what he is talking about.

If you go with Finance, be prepared for a lot of competition for a few front office spots (i.e. trading, research, IBD, AM) that pay the competitive 70 + 10 + 20-30% bonus.

It is much easier to major in something like Computer Science where your starting salary will be around 60-70k to begin with, and you will be doing decent work (not looking at accounting statements all day—you can expect this in most corporate finance roles, but not so much in trading and AM).

I was originally going with a Computer Information Systems major, but I switched to Finance. It was an extremely difficult recruiting process, and I had to delay my graduation by one semester to get a BB internship just so I could be competitive during full-time recruiting. Do I regret my decision? No, because I ended up getting an offer.

However, for someone who is not extremely competitive, Finance is NOT the easy way to make a good starting salary. If you consider yourself an extremely competitive person, then you may be able to land one of those few front-office roles.

To summarize: stick with MIS or Computer Science unless you know you can deal with a lot of competition to get a good front-office role in Finance. My two cents.

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