What do economic industry leaders undergo to reach where they are currently? Read this article for more information
One of the most fundamental finance skills that nearly every financial services aspirant requires to establish should focus on their finance and economic expertise. A lot of people often tend to believe that accounting and finance skills are just needed if you are actually considering a career in accounting. However, as William Jackson of Bridgepoint Capital would understand, the economic industry environment is interrelated, and each position within financial services requires you to understand the three main financial statements to a minimum of an intermediate degree. Businesses depend on these financial statements to manage budgeting, performance evaluation, and determine the expense of operations through the selection of the most suitable economic investments that may include bonds, stocks and property. This is why you see many bankers, insurance analysts, and even wealth managers with a formal accounting background, which is simply because of the essential understanding accountancy and financial services can provide you before you focus in your economic career.
Nowadays, one of the most apparent hard skills in finance would certainly include your numerical skills. Numbers and data-driven information in general are the backbone of every financial services career. As Ferdi van Heerden of Momentum Global Investment Managers would certainly understand, many banks often tend to hire their graduates, trainees, or apprentices from numerical fields, such as mathematics, financial services, chemical engineering fields, and computer science. This is because, as an economic expert, you are expected to analyze lengthy spreadsheets that are full of numerical information that you will likely need to analyze, and being comfortable with numbers is absolutely a vital tool to have in this case. One could suggest that even back-office positions that do not necessarily include data sets still require candidates to have some sort of quantitative or analytical experience, and this again reinforces the point around quantitative data being the foundation of every single process within a financial services sector organisation nowadays
One can quickly argue that soft skills in finance are as crucial as technical expertise. As Toby Raincock of Shard Capital would understand, being client focused in a financial setting is possibly the most challenging roles you can ever before find yourself in. This is since clients are relying on you with their personal money and investments, and therefore, you need to have the capacity to form lasting working connections with these clients, serving as their partners, and making their problems your very own. The stronger your connection is with the client, the easier your role will be. Such relationship-building abilities means that interaction abilities are also essential in the world of finance, particularly when it comes to delivering strategic insights and recommendations to customers. Furthermore, you must also have the ability to adapt your style when interacting with various audiences, switching among internal and external stakeholders, depending upon their level of financial literacy and familiarity.