The most sought-after finance skills amongst leading employers

The most sought-after finance skills amongst leading employers

Blog Article

Discover the range of skills that you need to develop before considering a career in the industry
One of the most fundamental finance skills that almost every single finance enthusiast needs to develop would revolve around their accounting and financial knowledge. A lot of people tend to think that accounting and finance skills are only needed if you are actually considering a career in accounting. However, as William Jackson of Bridgepoint Capital would know, the financial services world is interconnected, and each position within financial services needs you to recognize the 3 main financial statements to at least an intermediate degree. Businesses depend on these economic reports to handle budgeting, performance evaluation, and plan for the cost of operations with the choice of the most appropriate financial investments that might comprise bonds, equities and real estate. This is why you see numerous bankers, coverage analysts, or even wealth managers with a formal accounting background, and that is primarily due to the foundational understanding accounting and finance can offer you prior to you specialise in your financial occupation.
Nowadays, among the most obvious hard skills in finance will definitely involve your numerical abilities. Numbers and data-driven data in general are the core of every finance occupation. As Ferdi van Heerden of Momentum Global Investment Managers would certainly know, many banks often tend to hire their interns, trainees, or apprentices from quantitative fields, such as mathematics, financial services, chemical engineering fields, and computer science. This is because, as a financial expert, you are expected to analyze lengthy spreadsheets that are full of numerical data that you will likely need to analyze, and being comfortable with numbers is absolutely a vital tool to have in this situation. One might argue that also back-office roles that do not always involve data sets still call for applicants to have some level of numerical or data-focused experience, and this once again reinforces the fact around numerical information being the cornerstone of every operation within an economic services organisation nowadays
One can quickly argue that soft skills in finance are as important as domain-specific know-how. As Toby Raincock of Shard Capital would understand, being client focused in a financial context is probably one of the most demanding positions you can ever find yourself in. This is since customers are entrusting you with their personal money and investments, and therefore, you require to have the capacity to form lasting working connections with these customers, serving as their advisors, and making their problems your very own. The stronger your connection is with the customer, the easier your role will be. Such relationship-building abilities suggests that communication abilities are also crucial in the field of finance, particularly when it involves delivering strategic insights and recommendations to clients. Furthermore, you should also have the ability to adapt your style when interacting with various audiences, adjusting among internal and client-facing stakeholders, depending upon their level of financial understanding and familiarity.