Do you enjoy crunching numbers and wish to enter a lucrative career field? In that case, pursuing a career in finance might be just what you are looking for. The term “finance” refers to a broad field with knowledge in banking, markets, credit, transfer pricing, foreign exchange, insurance, and taxation.
Recent studies predict that the market for financial services worldwide will surpass $28,529.29 billion by 2025. Thus, for driven and ambitious individuals, this implies a promising future in one of the fast-paced industries in the business world. That said, if you are wondering what you can do with a finance degree, you have come to the right place. Listed below are five promising career options you can opt for after earning a finance degree:
- Lease Administrator
Lease administration, also known as leasing management, is a crucial job position that involves managing, monitoring, and auditing lease agreements. As a lease administrator, your primary focus will be to manage real estate leases for a real estate firm or a holding company’s rental real estate portfolio.
Gone are the days when lease administrators used to keep spreadsheets or sticky notes to maintain the record of leases. Instead, today, you can utilize, manage, and update different tools and resources at your disposal to do your lease administration job.
Typical job responsibilities of a lease administrator can include the following:
- Gather and enter leases, initial lease approval forms, memoranda of understanding, and other documents into the lease administration database.
- Create, manage, and maintain the data integrity of physical and electronic lease files.
- Send all paperwork to both internal and external recipients.
- Follow up on all documents’ status and deal with internal and external stakeholders.
- Create initial rent receipts and verify all pertinent information.
- Auditor
As an auditor, you will be responsible for verifying the accuracy of financial accounts for an organization. Auditors are responsible for drawing attention to discrepancies in accounting practices, protecting the company against fraud, and guaranteeing that it complies with tax laws.
The specializations of these professionals vary; for instance, some auditors focus on risk management or assurance services. There are four basic categories of auditors: government, forensic, external, and internal.
Your day-to-day job duties can include the following:
- Establish audit goals, strategies, and scope by analyzing the available material and performing research.
- Assist in developing, implementing, and maintaining internal auditing and risk assessment systems.
- Create audit reports, audit results, and recommendations.
- Keep abreast with business changes and best practices in accounting and auditing.
- Comply with all relevant plans, policies, and standards.
- Financial Analyst
Do you have exceptional data-gathering and analytical skills? Then, pursuing a career as a financial analyst might be an ideal option for you.
The primary job responsibility of a financial analyst is to analyze financial data and provide valuable analysis to the organization. Thus, you will assist the business in making decisions regarding raising capital and increasing earnings.
Some of the everyday job responsibilities of a financial analyst include:
- Create monthly reports that incorporate key performance indicators, financial data, and variance reporting.
- Analyze and evaluate the following: operations records, financial statements, proposals, investment prospects, rate of return, and capital expenditures.
- Determine areas where the company may improve its performance.
- Organize and lead the budgeting and forecasting procedures for the year and the quarter.
- Stay current with new investing rules or policies.
- Create models to aid in decision-making.
- Credit Analyst
A credit analyst, or a credit risk analyst, evaluates an individual’s or company’s financial information to establish their creditworthiness and risk profile before choosing whether or not to provide them credit. Commercial banks and investment companies are the most common employers of credit analysts.
Note that credit analysts’ duties are not just about the numbers. The best credit analysts are also effective communicators, skilled at perceiving subtle differences in others, vital team members, and discreet, loyal employees who uphold the interests of their employers.
Additionally, you should be able to negotiate effectively, use solid judgment, and practice excellent time-management and organizational skills to succeed in this position. Below are some of the typical job duties you might perform as a credit analyst:
- Collect client information.
- Assess client financial information and credit information to assess the risk of lending money to them.
- Put together studies on the level of risk involved in lending money to customers.
- Leverage data from customer records analysis to suggest payment schedules.
- Complete loan applications and send them to lending committees for approval after incorporating the credit analysis and loan request summaries.
- Assist the departments of sales, marketing, and supply chain in handling financial orders to help them decrease the likelihood of customer disputes, limit credit exposure, and deliver payments on schedule.
- Actuary
Using statistics, financial theories, and mathematics, an actuary, also known as an actuarial analyst, evaluate possible risks associated with business decisions or circumstances. Their responsibilities include determining the likelihood that particular business decisions will succeed, projecting natural disaster costsa and of employee deaths or illnesses, and developing insurance policies or business strategies to lower a company’s financial risks.
Actuaries often work for insurance companies; however, they may also work in accounting firms or financial institutions. It would be best if you possess excellent communication skills, attention to detail, problem-solving, and analytical skills to take your career to the next level.
Here are some of the day-to-day job responsibilities of an actuarial analyst:
- Collect and examine statistical information, such as accident rates, to generate an analysis.
- Calculate the likelihood and potential expense of incidents, including accidents, fatalities, natural disasters, and illnesses.
- Create and improve methods to reduce risk and expenses.
- Create reports, tables, models, graphs, and charts.
- Present and explain the findings to managers, relevant stakeholders, and clients at meetings.
Conclusion
Let’s face it, pursuing a degree in finance undoubtedly has many benefits. Stable employment opportunities rank highest among them. The best thing for finance enthusiasts is that finding a job is not hampered by unemployment rates, political events, or the economy, given the abundance of options in this industry. In simpler words, one of the few professions that will always be in demand, regardless of the state of the market, is finance.
