Any enterprise with a certain scale will have some financial work. Many people start with financial analyst. The work includes the analysis, summary and report of the company's financial situation, the financial budget and management of projects and departments and enterprises. Excel is the most important tool. Some particularly large enterprises also have jobs similar to those of professional financial institutions. For example, some enterprises manage their own pensions, and the work they do is similar to that of investment management companies. There are also some large enterprises that have their own internal departments responsible for mergers and acquisitions, and coordinate their work with investment banks. The pressure of financial work within an enterprise is less than that of working directly in a financial institution. The average weekly working hours may also be shorter. Work is also very interesting. If you want to have enough time to take care of your family and have your own private time while your career is successful, this may be one of the choices worth considering.
2. Commercial banks
The work of commercial banks includes loan management. A commercial bank will lend money to an enterprise, and then it needs to manage the relationship with this enterprise, recover the principal and interest, and increase new loans. This kind of work needs good numerical ability, analytical reasoning ability and some knowledge of credit analysis at the beginning. After a certain stage of career, the ability to establish interpersonal relationships becomes more and more important. The income from loan management is good, the job is stable, and the pressure may not be as great as that of investment banks. Many commercial banks also have many other businesses, such as credit cards and consumer-oriented financial services.
3. Credit card
One of the jobs of the credit card department is to analyze and manage the credit status of credit card applicants or cardholders. Due to the low annual interest rate and other factors in recent years, credit card business has developed rapidly, completely unaffected by the recent economic recession, and together with housing loans and other fields, it has become one of the few industries that recruit more people in the depressed job market. Because the applicants or cardholders come from different ethnic groups and ages, some credit card companies are interested in job applicants from ethnic minorities, including Chinese, for better analysis.
4. venture capital
venture capital invests in growing companies. If you work in a venture capital company after graduating from university or MBA, you may spend a lot of time on the feasibility analysis of business plan, including reading the plan, collecting and analyzing industry background information, interviewing the management of the company, etc. It may also take time to manage the investments already made.
5. Broker
Mainly refers to a commission broker, that is, a broker who buys and sells stocks for customers and collects commissions. I mainly work for Brokerage Firms. Some investment banks, such as Merrill Lynch, also have stockbroker departments. This job requires financial knowledge, but more importantly, the ability to sell, that is, the ability to establish interpersonal relationships. After establishing a wide customer base, some stockbrokers may be able to spend more time on recommending stocks for customers, but most of the time in the early days is spent on establishing customer relationships.
The sales ability is not only eloquence, but one of my sales colleagues in IBM has a good performance. It turns out that he sings karaoke well, so customers like to go to karaoke with him, and at least get acquainted with each other first.
As a stockbroker, if the performance is good, you can earn a good income, but you don't need to work particularly long hours every week. But not everyone is suitable for sales. If your performance is not good. Then there is a lot of pressure.
related to this is the Private Client Service department of some investment banks, and different companies may have different names. It mainly serves richer customers (such as more than $1 million). Besides stocks, it also sells other financial products and services. For this industry. Sales ability is still crucial.
6. Stock trader
Stock traders are responsible for buying and selling stocks. This is also a very distinctive job. On the one hand, this job also needs some stock analysis ability to grasp the timing of buying and selling. However, unlike stock analysts, stock traders pay more attention to the factors that affect the short-term rise and fall of stocks.
this job needs to face strong pressure and the ability to respond quickly. A stock trader can work for an asset management company (buyside buyer) or the stock analysis department of an investment bank (sell-side seller). Buyside and sell-side are commonly used terms in the investment industry. Let me give a brief introduction first. The asset management company is the buyer side. They manage assets directly for their clients. Asset management companies can be divided into mutual funds, hedge funds and funds from institutional clients (pension, insurance funds, etc.). Sell-side mainly refers to the Equity Research department of an investment bank. (Some large investment banks may have both asset management departments and stock analysis departments, that is, both buyers and sellers. However, these two departments operate relatively independently and are not necessarily closely related. ) The sell-side doesn't directly manage the assets, and they mainly earn profits by providing trading services for the buyer. In the past, the stock analysts on the sales side also made profits by waving flags for the merger and acquisition activities of their investment banks. However, a few years ago, it was greatly criticized. Therefore, activities in this area are restricted. Although the sell-side does not directly manage assets. But some of their stock analysts have great influence on the sales side. Therefore, their opinions can also greatly affect the decline of stock accounts. Let's go back to the topic of stock traders. On average, stock traders on the selling side are more stressed than those on the buying side. The possible income is also higher. Stock traders often need to be highly nervous when they work. Because the market is changing rapidly. And each transaction often affects tens of millions of dollars. Even hundreds of millions. Billions of dollars. On the other hand. The trader did a good job. The income is also very high. A good stock trader can earn as much as an investment banker. But you don't have to work that long a week.
7. Equity analyst
Both the seller and the buyer need stock analysts, whose job is to analyze the value of the stock to see if it is worth investing. Stock analysts on the buyside do not publish their analysis results to the public, but provide the results to the portfolio manager of the company. Some companies also have funds managed by stock analysts themselves (called analyst fund, or similar names), which are directly invested according to the research of stock analysts.
as far as career prospects are concerned, some stock analysts on the buyside have always been stock analysts, and some will be portfolio managers in the future. The average working hours of stock analysts on the buyside are not very long, and the asset management department of an investment bank is often one of the departments with the shortest working hours per week in the whole bank. The pressure mainly comes from the fact that if the stocks you recommend always perform poorly, then your recommendation will be gradually rejected. The daily work of the stock analyst on the buyside includes analyzing financial reports, attending investor meetings of the invested company, meeting with the management of the invested company, meeting with the stock analyst on the selling side, visiting the invested company, and analyzing stocks by various means. Stock analysts on the sell-side work for the stock analysis departments of investment banks such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Their research results will be told to clients in the asset management industry. It is often the stock analyst on the selling side who announces the upgrade or downgrade rating of a stock and the target price of a stock. An excellent sell-side stock analyst can greatly influence the judgment of the public and the buyer on the stock value. So I will also get a high income. A few star stock analysts earned more than $1 million a year in previous years. Generally speaking, the stock analysts on the sell-side work longer hours per week and earn higher average income than those on the buy-side. Some overseas students from China worked as stock analysts in various asset management companies after graduating from the United States, and most of them managed assets related to Asia. Stock analysts on the sell-side have higher requirements for language expression. Because I often have to deal with American customers and the media. Even fewer people in China work in it. Actually. I don't know any China students who work as a sell-side stock analyst in the major investment banks on Wall Street after graduation. The number, if any, is very small. By contrast. However, there are many overseas students from China in the stock analysis department of China branch of these investment banks.
8. Sell-side sales staff
Their main job is to manage the relationship with customers (asset management companies) and let customers buy our trading services. Sales staff will also be based on the research results of our company. Give some investment advice to customers. Their job characteristics are somewhat similar to those of stockbrokers. The difference is that stockbrokers serve individual customers, while these salespeople serve institutional customers.
9. Acquisition and merger and stock issuance
This is the most important source of income for most investment banks, and it is also a very eye-catching industry. This is a very characteristic kind of work. On the one hand, the work intensity is great. Analyst and associate who work in the largest investment banks may work more than 1 hours a week on average. In terms of the average work intensity of the whole industry, I am afraid that only young lawyers from management consulting and major law firms can compare with them. Strictly speaking, investment banks work a little longer than the average working hours of the latter two. On the other hand, income is also very objective. The ability gained in the work and the future prospects are very good, so this industry still attracts a large number of excellent job seekers every year. The ability of numerical analysis is of course important in job hunting, so is the ability of language expression and communication. Like many careers, after working in an investment bank for several years, the weekly working hours are gradually shortened, and the ability of interpersonal communication becomes more and more important. In the end, whether you can win the deal for the company has gradually become the most important measure of your performance.
Undergraduate graduates usually work as analysts, and most analysts will take MBA courses in a few years. After getting an MBA. Will enter the company as associate. On top of that are vice president and managing director. Unlike industrial enterprises, an investment bank may have more vice presidents. There are also many people who will leave the work of acquisition and merger at various stages and invest in asset management, private capital, or commercial banks.
1. private equity
private equity buys part or all of the ownership of a company, or provides funds to the enterprise in some forms, and tries to make a profit from it.
When engaging in these activities, it is necessary to analyze the value of the invested company, so the work is very close to the enterprise acquisition and merger department of the investment bank. In fact, before many people entered the field of private equity. Working experience in investment bank. One difference from venture capital is that a lot of private equity capital does not tend to invest in fast-growing enterprises in the development stage. Actually. Many private equity funds tend to invest in more traditional industries whose value is undervalued. There are also some financial work, such as investment in fixed-income securities, investment in derivative financial instruments, model building, housing loans, etc., which will not be introduced one by one because of time.