An interesting article on the Financial Times talks about a new trend of MBA's going into banking in order to work with the tech industry:
The banking sector is holding its own as an MBA employer. But it is doing so in part by offering new kinds of jobs, either as part of in-house teams developing new digital strategies or for those who want to work for fintech companies.In the US, some of the biggest opportunities for those hoping to work in banking are close to the tech sector in California. It means even MBA graduates who do not take jobs in big tech may end up working for these giants indirectly, for example by serving the tech sector in a large investment bank.
A thorough understanding of the digital world is essential for those going into finance, she adds. Banks are interested in building new strategies based around machine learning and other technological breakthroughs. “The skills they want are digital, such as data analytics and AI,” Ms Briggs says.
The increasing competition for MBA's by tech companies such as Amazon, Google, and Apple, puts pressure on banks to provide more tech-related roles. So no matter where you go, there is a big chance that you are working with the tech industry in some shape or form. If the trend continues, then the skills needed to succeed on the job tomorrow might be very different than those needed today.
What does this mean for us students? How important will tech skills be for wannabee bankers?
Do you think this trend will continue?
How do you think banks will utilize the new technology (such as AI)?
Thoughts?
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Doesn't look like anything to me
No its not. I am a senior at highschool in a pretty high socio-economic area and no one wants to do banking. All the dream jobs are either at a large tech company, having a start up tech company, medicine, or something creative/artsy like a writer or philosopher. It doesn't seem like banking gets much respect outside of the financial sector. I was talking to my aunts, uncles, and grandparents and they all thought of investment banking as a way to sell your soul for money in an industry that is worthless (Ignorant I know). People seem to value innovation and making a difference instead of becoming financially stable. I am not saying one is better than the other; just stating my observations
Two points:
most people's contact with anyone in "finance" is usually a financial advisor, and maybe they know someone who is a "trader". Other than that, most people's knowledge of finance is from watching wolf of wall street or the big short. Maybe they saw mad money once. I agree with the post above, most avenues in finance are not explored in school mainly because most teachers themselves don't understand the avenue.
People tend to value innovation/dreams jobs because of the disney narrative involved (meaning what they see in a movie or read in a book). For example, if you love to bake and open a bakery, outside people think it's baking bread and cupcakes all day. They forget, you have to clean the store, do the books, pay the bills, get insurance, not exactly things associated with baking. But if you own a bakery, you love baking; love working out, start a gym; like kids, be a teacher. What people tend to forget is that all these things are done for profit, which is also what people do when they enter banking/corporate, they want to make money aka profit.
The most important skill you can build, aside from being able to sell yourself or something else, is adaptability. It is, most certainly, a skill that can be learned. You need to learn how to manage through gray areas, take on any task that comes your way, improvise when needed and never be afraid to take on something that you have no idea how to accomplish until you start doing it.
This is a trend that hasn't changed, and will continue into the future. A different issue is how we have shifted from financialization of companies to some variant of that with technology. Everyone is racing to leverage, develop or jump into a technology related area - be it leveraging data for enhanced or adaptive marketing, democratization or increased access to information through centralized portals, block chain looking to slice out the middle man for transactions, pick through unstructured data, turn data into words, etc, etc, etc. Those are, by the way, some of the least informed and generic examples out there.
As far as the importance of 'tech skills' i'm of a few thoughts. I think you need to choose where you want to be in the food chain. Everyone should have a basic understanding of how to use technology and/or how, broadly speaking, many technologies work. From there, it's figuring out what you want to do - do you want to build things from scratch and code? do you want to sell the outputs of the building to folks who can leverage it? do you want to translate tech speak into business speak, and vice versa? Etc.