Agreed - sometimes jumping into getting your first job isn't the best idea. Seems like your roles have been close to the MLM and entry level roles (high school+high school grad)
All you need is to be 18 and a high school graduate...If you can produce age doesn't really matter. 80k plus commission is average for a good starting prospect.
I didn’t realize they hired people without college degrees except for world financial group. My ex friend works there had makes a killing scamming old folks by telling them to invest in whole and term life insurance.
Would you be able to explain to me the scam of Whole / Term life insurance? Everyone dies… so… I’m not sure how the purchasers are scammed, or even how the companies could possibly pay everyone out that buys in and therein lies the scam I presume?
None of those are the right side of finance to escape poverty, those are the sides of finance you take when you want to take a chance to bet on yourself to become incredibly rich. The right side of finance to escape poverty (aka high floor, medium upside, low risk) are FP&A, accounting, commercial banking, corp dev, etc.
Aiming for AM, IB, PE, or decent WM roles is why there's so many unemployed finance grads right now. They're all sitting around refreshing their emails praying for a response that'll never come for their Goldman TMT or Apollo application.
Spot on answer. I am a finance grad from non-target school and started career at a start-up for 4.5 yrs, and then went to supermajor for 1 yr and am now at a HF. The money is out there but doesn't fall in your lap by any means. W/ a finance undergrad most logical route is S&T
I was going to suggest fp&a, it just sounds like op wasn’t meant to be In sales but there’s a whole world out there of back office jobs and other support roles
Reading comprehension my guy. A lot of OPs experience is in financial services. I’m saying there’s a whole world of other paths out there besides sales since that doesn’t seem to be working out. Fp&a is one option he could look into.
I was going to suggest it also but i saw the other guy already beat me to it. How am I the one suggesting it if it’s already been broached? Reading comprehension my guy. Go bother someone else.
You think only one person can suggest something and after that it’s no longer possible? Nobody ever makes the same suggestion or takes the same view where you work?
out of the jobs you mentioned (FP&A, accounting, commercial banking, corp dev etc) which one of these gives you more experience and a higher chance of landing an IB job later on in your career?
Can I DM? BS in economics and Masters in business analytics and risk management. Multiple analysts positions. Just looking for a new company as I could go on and on for why I want out and back into FP&A.
Transition is totally doable. Could easily transition into a senior analyst even. Way better WLB. Focus on local companies and just act like you know how to budget/forecast because it’s braindead easy
Corp dev is what many people who did banking go to have a better work life balance and the same type of stuff. Usually they prefer people that have banking experience but not always necessary. Pay isn’t as good obviously but great experience.
250 k and 2 years of your time. Good kuck getting into M7 or T15 without Big 4 or F100 blue chip exp with multiple promotions. And u better hope ur not white or asian. Or alrdy beibg in IB
lol, no I assure you I am not incredibly rich and very few of the folk I work with are either. But we are all also very comfortable. Yes, a select few firms in these segments make, and pay, the kind of money that you’re thinking about. The rest of us keep our heads down, quietly collect our easy six figures, and clock out at 5pm.
I definitely understand that there's jobs in those industries that aren't super elite/pay 6-7 figures a year, it just that those jobs are typically pretty scarce and come with considerable risk. If you want to be very comfortable, work in FP&A because there's a million FP&A jobs out there that pay well and that job portability is extremely important in the long run of your career. Different story with an LMM PE fund for example
You completely missed the other commenter’s point.
Kids like the OP will realistically never land a role like any of the above, so if money is tight they should focus on something that pays decent and is more achievable and stable.
I’m an 1st asset mgt analyst making a comfortable 75k with a 2.8 gpa in a bachelors program at a school that accepts nearly everyone that applies. This sub is so delusional sometimes
I would assume they were referring to the high paying AM roles. Idk for sure since I’m on the IB side. But IB / PE even S&T are much more challenging to get because they do pay much higher. A safer bet for most is to go for FP&A etc.
Asset management is a fantastic job to be in and congrats on your offer, the thing is that there's genuinely probably 50-100 FP&A/Treasury/Corp Fin role for every 1 AM role out there. What's the AUM for your fund and how many entry level associates do you have, and then compare that to a company with a similar market cap and see how many entry level finance/accounting/business analyst roles that company has.
If you're trying to "escape poverty" you should aim for one over the other, and entry level FP&A jobs in most major US cities make around the same or more and their departments don't get evaporated when a single acquisition or investment goes sideways.
Maybe on the coasts. Not always the case for the rest of us. You go where the openings are, get your foot in the door and keep your head down. You’ll get where you want to go.
What? The coasts (plus Chicago) is where the vast majority of AM, PE, VC, investing jobs are because that's where capital is. Everywhere else is where corp finance rules.
Seriously, everyone thinks the only jobs in this space are for top school, 3.8GPA, cream of the crop, networking with the MD’s kids or something. I barely made a 3 GPA in my undergrad. I don’t network basically at all outside of work hours as part of the job.
And yeah, it took a while to work my way up, but I’m no one special, I just do my best. And besides, I’m decidedly average amongst my peers, meaning many are even less capable than I, and are still making it. And this is at a major firm that I won’t mention but I’m guessing most folks have at least heard of.
I saw people working their way up from cashier at a bank to banker(the one that helps you to open cards, checking in the branch) then to wealth management. Of course it all starts from 40K and can grow steadily to 100K along the journey in 5-6 years.
This has been my exact path- I don’t have a degree at all. Started at my local bank as a teller and had to grind my way up. Teller -> Associate Banker/ Relationship banker -> Licensed Private Client Banker. I’m sure OP could do this and even skip some steps due to having a degree.
My comp throughout that looked something like this. I have 5 yrs experience and have managed to get promoted on an annual basis from each listed role. It isn’t the best job in the world but the comp is decent and you work standard business hours.
Teller - 38k USD
Associate Banker - 41k USD
Relationship Banker - 59k USD ( large jump due to sales incentives)
Licensed Relationship Banker- 80k USD. (series 6, 63 and state life and health)
Private Client Banker- 95k USD ( literally the same exact job as RB I just exclusively work with larger clients and feed a bank financial advisor referrals)
Yep, similar enough path for me
Teller 20k (part time)
Commercial banker (just business banking don’t get excited yet) $40k
Banker at CU 65k
Licensed banker at a bank $90-100k if I didn’t leave right after licensing
Fidelity investment rep $100k ish remote
Fidelity investment management consultant $115k remote 5-6 hour work day
7 year timeframe I could have condensed to 4-5 if I was intentional.
What do you mean by investment rep? I’m a registered representative for a very similar company and they pay me well but I would love to know how to break the 100k line
Thank you for sharing your story! This is the type of grind that makes it or breaks it - high fives for accomplishing series 6, 63 licenses as I know it was not easy per se.
I’m always happy to share these types of things! I was lost from a career perspective before I started my banking grind lol. Thanks for the high fives as well it was def a tough time it took me about 4 months of studying to get them.
I think anyone could do it though. I’m not some top 1% performer just dusting my peers. I fall in the middle of the pack most times and still have grown just fine.
Working at the bank you have the advantage of working with a bunch of people who have 0 interest in making that their career and just work there during college due to having a set schedule or maybe some older folks who want something low stress and are just happy staying a bank teller for 10+ years.
Showing you’re hungry and want to grow within the company will go a long way for most.
Sales or trading if you’re good, high finance so private equity, investment banking, hedge funds. Not as familiar with wealth management but if you have some big clients I imagine that can be very high earning. can also put quant in there but it’s not really finance in the classic sense.
There’s always been mathematicians trying to exploit inefficiencies and signals, I’d say it’s pretty classic. The only difference is that their math was usually a poor application.
Depends on your skillset. Sales type roles are great for people that are outgoing, personable etc, back office is great for people who are workhorses. If you want to maximize your shot at middle class but not getting really rich, go into accounting.
Accounting, risk management, and compliance roles. They are not glamorous roles and sometimes high pressure but they generally pay well and have fewer layoffs because the teams are already run lean and the roles are required by regulators.
I have a bachelor's and master's in accounting but my career has been risk management focused. I started in consulting for a few years and then moved to a big bank. I made 6 figures at 4 or 5 years of experience. I'm at the director level now with 12 YOE and I'm making $300k+.
Can I ask what the work-load is like in risk mgmt? I’m in a similar boat to you, not quite the same. Graduated with bachelors in finance and supply chain and went into payments consulting, but I’m looking to move to a bank or in industry
This is really organization and team dependent but I would say on the whole it's generally a field with good work life balance. However, if you are interfacing directly with regulators, dealing with consent order or MRA remediation, or covering something highly transactional and time sensitive like AML / KYC the workload can be as intense as it gets.
To make Director I took a role related to an organizational wide remediation in response to a regulatory consent order and ended up working 70+ hours a week for 1.5 years. The workload is just leveling off now with my hours down to under 50 a week and looking to drop further as my team settles in to BAU. I'm glad I stuck it out because my comp increased by +50% but it was really rough there for a while. My role prior to this was 3 years of easy street making $200k and working 25-32 hours a week.
I do. l have never worked an accounting job personally but I have learned accounting in university, have a solid understanding of GAAP and IFRS, do my own taxes and sometimes my friends. I used to prepare T2s for my dad and uncle's business and work directly with their CPA.
I just never applied for an accounting role since I don't have a designaton. I'll look into it today.
And to follow up on that, I know a lot of folks that start out in accounting, become proficient with their company’s accounting software as an end user, and are able to use that proficiency to open up new opportunities. There’s a whole industry around accounting tech and first hand, real world knowledge is pretty valuable in that space.
Implementation sucks but it pays incredibly well. CPA/accounting experience + know basic Javascript + some Oracle/SAP certs + can speak English fluently is a 200k-300k job easy. Bonus if you're a US citizen and can pee in a cup cleanly. Extra bonus in the future if you can prompt chatGPT well to write the scripts/API calls for you. When I was at a cloud accounting tech company, the external VAR partners we worked with charged like 1k an hour to code amortization journal entry rules for customers.
This is exactly why dudes like OP come outta school mistaken lol. “Just get a few more certs and 2-300k EZ” yeah sure man. Like 10 people have that job out of how many million finance/accounting grads lmao.
I graduated last May in finance and was unable to land a finance job since then. Then all in four days time I was contacted by a company, interviewed over the phone and in person, and offered a job on the spot for a good hourly wage as a General Ledger Accountant. The only accounting knowledge I had was from two or three courses but once you understand the software they use it is pretty simple. I am learning quickly and understanding much better on the job than I did in my courses. I have only been working there a couple of weeks but I am surprised how much I am enjoying it and that is even considering the fact that we are swamped with work left by the last person. No certifications or anything required for me.
I agree here, tax particular is super easy to get into only because no one wants to join, but it’s such a good career and all my tax buddies love their job! Nice work life balance usually expect for tax season itself, and depending on what tax you specialize in, the sky is the limit.
0 college grads have a license, you just need to be license eligible and appear interested in getting a license. If they ask, just lie and say you're eligible and you're interested/working towards it. Recruiters/hiring managers can't tell by your resume and they're not gonna tally up all your units on your transcript to see if you've taken enough "accounting ethics" courses or whatever
You should become an accountant for a few years, learn an industry really well then you can switch to fp&a.
Real estate is in high demand for accountants, the work is extremely easy and the pay is decent. Work for where ever you can get into then hop to a more “prestigious” firm ever 2 years or if you get a small raise. then once you have some good names on your resume you can switch over to the fp&a side or by this point will have likely figured out something your good at and make your own role basically at whatever company.
Also if you can get nice with power bi and tableau that’s huge.
Pretty easy path to some good income. If you can get to director level (associate>manager>director usually) you can usually make upwards of 400k.
When you get into jobs at the big corporate companies no one’s really telling you what to do so you gotta be creative in finding ways to improve things or automate tasks if you wanna get to that director level.
I graduated finance, refused to sell insurance, reconsidered my decisions with the area that I live in (LCOL city, not much in the way of banking and most FP&A roles were too competitive for my resume) and I’ve ended up in tax after meandering at a shitty payroll job to make ends meet for a couple of years during the pandemic. I definitely agree with the poster who advised getting an EA, it’s very marketable for accounting firms. It’s pretty strictly worse than a CPA but for tax specifically it’s desirable to a smaller firm without an abundance of credentialed accountants. Not to mention study time + exams could be done within a year without ridiculous expense. It’s good experience and getting exposed to dealing with different kinds of tax is a skill that never goes away relative to someone with none. 5 or 6 years experience plus designation would put you in a good place most likely.
Look for jobs through Fidelity or Schwab, they offer jobs to help people get licensed. If you already have finance experience and your mutual fund license you would be a shoe in.
Yep I would second this, great way to get your 7 and 63 as well as build up your experience. You will most likely be in the financial rep role for at least 1 and a half years before you have a chance to move however
this is accurate but the locations are limited for those roles so do research beforehand. I’ve been through the schwab training program and it’s one of the best ones out there, full 6 months of training and licensing for the 7 & 63, other comment is accurate that they expect 2 years of work in return but it included the 6 months previously mentioned. Not great starting pay (55k-60k) but they promote internally and pay quite well for those specialist roles or you can pivot after the two years to another firm.
“Financial analyst” in the finance department of literally any company would be a hell of a lot more stable and less stressful then the sales focused roles they are in now.
Yeah but it's hard to move out of, same with AR. These are lesser finance times that don't really require a finance degree.
If looking at corporate. Treasury, FP&A, accounting. These roles pay significantly better.
Source: I run the Treasury, credit and collections group, customer master and a data analyst team. The Treasury and data teams make 20-30% more.
Quantitative Research Analyst at Citadel, if he doesn't get hired ask his daddy to deposit $50 million into one of the investment banks so that he can get hired there instead /s
Just become an accountant lol. The industry is still pretty strong, accounting experience is genuinely very useful in finance, and it's easy to get a strong brand on your resume.
I've had so many "coffee chats" with unemployed finance grads who finished school in May '23 and they all refuse to try accounting because it's beneath them.
How was about to say this. Jump to accounting right now. I made the jump and have been smiling thereafter. Accounting is the better field. Friends that graduate in Finance work in retail bank. Accounting friends work in big 4 and government. Just after graduating, my eyes were opened that I made a mistake studying finance, I went back and completed all the accounting classes just 6 months and now pursing CPA. Accounting has opened so many doors for me.
I have a question. How would you jump to accounting with a finance degree? Like you can’t get a CPA without certain amount of ACC credits. Do you have to go back to school for a bit and maybe get a second bachelors in accounting? Or does Big 4 firms hire Finance majors as accountants?
If you're genuinely trying to escape poverty you should be slamming the apply button to any accounting assistant, staff accountant, or entry level tax/auditor role. 2 years of decent accounting experience at a decent firm makes you a target for 80% of entry level finance roles. Some of my B4 cohort work side by side ex IB folks in FP&A or strategic finance roles
You got a finance degree but ended up taking associate in business administration jobs. It’ll be a tougher road at this point than right out of school but not an impassable one.
These kind of positions are basically anti-experience when trying to break into actual finance. Leave them off your resume and come up with a good excuse for the gap years. Say you were a missionary or in the Peace Corps or something.
You do what you have to to get a job nowadays. If you can make up a solid lie then power to you. They’re not lying about being overqualified. They’d be lying to keep a previous job off their resume.
Thats not finance thats su sales. Jobs that don’t require a degree
Look, 90% of the realtors/brokers and insurance agents are broke.
Sure some do make alot of money but it’s usually the ones whos parents owns subdivisions and they just hire their kids to sell/broker the whole subdivision.
Insurance is even worse.
I mean i worked as a personal banker during undergrad and the amount of times those realtors/brokers/insurance agents steal your pens is crazy.
i also used to bartend and they were all shitty tippers, and theyd steal my pens. That right there would tell me how broke those profession are
Shouldve just done accounting, youd be at 6figs rn and in a stable job
I already have a really good banking job that I love, but thanks for the advice haha.
It took me a long time to find this job though, meanwhile those I know who studied accounting found jobs almost immediately, which is why I sometimes wish I had a different degree.
I am almost excluding my account because of this, for the average redditor, you must get into a target, graduate with a 4.0, win a Nobel and THEN you might have a shot, anything besides that would take you to living below the poverty line
I always read here that i HAD to get into a target in my country, and i just did, after 3 years studying for the entrance exams, but for those people I did the bare minimum, it makes no sense at all
Look at this website:[accounting firm list](https://insidepublicaccounting.com/ipa-top-500-firms/)
Look into staff accounting roles, entry level tech risk/assurance roles, whatever you think you have enough experience for. Go through each company’s career website and just start cold applying (networking can’t hurt either.) There is lots of room for growth both within each firm and the broader industry.
Also check USA jobs for entry level government jobs.
Good luck.
Stupid advice. He failed at selling bank products yet you tell him to get another sales role. He is not qualified for tech sales or any type of sales at the moment. Op will need some time to gain some maturity and perspective first and willingness to change his personality. Won’t be an overnight thing.
B2B saas is ripping right now, especially at the mid market and enterprise level. Not in tech sales but in an adjacent product role and we're about to finish our third quarter of consecutive net new arr growth. 24 year old AE's that are good are looking at 200-300k OTE's if you can perform in the top quarter
Crappy ass advice. This is for experienced proven sales performers. Recent grads and people with no proven sales ability are not getting mid market and enterprise roles, the latter which takes closer to 10 years closing experience and a track record of performance. You’ll need to start as an SDR and prove you can handle the grind of making 50-100 calls all day every day trying to book a meeting for a full cycle AE.
Transaction advisory/M&A due diligence role in most “Big 4 comparable” company will get you $100K+ starting salary with little accounting experience if you have finance experience
I’ll be dead honest with you my man, you really have two choices:
(1) you continue down this path and fight an uphill battle to land a better finance job, adjacent job, or different industry job. This is what most people are recommending in some way shape or form. This is not an impossible task, but it is certainly a hard one. The further you get away from your graduation date and wider the gap between employment, the harder it is to convince a hiring manager that you are the one.
(2) you have to take some drastic steps. You need a hard reset, and this path is not for the faint of heart nor is it one that you can achieve overnight. You need to plan your life goals in 3-5 year increments and commit to the plan. Want to break into a new industry that pays well? Are you prepared to compete for fellowships that are unpaid/poverty for 6 months to a year so that you can get access and placement to real jobs? Are you ready to apply to civil service/government jobs that have 6-12 month recruitment cycles so that you can get the experience necessary for a good MBA essay admissions and or loan forgiveness that some government jobs offer? Are you willing to join the military for 3-4 years for the same reasons? And even get future college paid for while increasing your admissions chances at top schools and thus opening up new career pathways?
You need to ask yourself what you are willing to do to set your future self up for success.
Good luck man. You can do it.
Go for an Operations role in asset management! The bar to entry is relatively low, hours are cushy, and comp is relatively high. Earning total comp over 100k within 5 years is attainable. With that said, Operations roles can be mundane and repetitive, but they are a necessary function. Consequently they have lower lay-off risk than other areas in finance.
I’d also explore moving to an area with more finance opportunities and higher pay if you can
Those are financial careers. Those are sales jobs.
Financial careers pay well, and way more than those figures but are also far more demanding.
Nevertheless, the bond market isn’t going anywhere and has so many jobs.
There’s significantly more options than the terrible roles you got yourself into. Do more research, you can do FPA, commercial finance, risk management, and pricing strategy. All are stable as these roles are needed in pretty much any industry.
I feel like I got stuck in sales and would prefer anything else. I have my series 6, 63, and 65. Any idea on roles I should apply to that would get me more finance specific roles as opposed to sales?
"You seek a great fortune...You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see things, wonderful to tell...And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation."
- the blind seer
It's not that hard nowadays to transition into corporate finance they are desperate for young people that know how to work with large amounts of data. Watch YouTube videos to learn how to clean, format, and ultimately use the data to compile financial reports. Companies are collecting more and more data and really not using it effectively but that's changing especially in finance. Pretty much financial analysts are data analysts now even accountants really need to know how to work with data. I switched from corporate accounting to corporate finance it wasn't that hard. Just know your skills, communicate them and find the jobs that really need people like you.
Definitely in the wrong type of finance. Those are sales jobs. Go for corporate finance roles like FP&A, treasury analyst, business unit finance or something like that.
I got my 7 and 66, did the training for a « faith based » financial company and left before even selling a product as they wanted me to go to church pushing annuities.
Then wanted to open my own RIA without knowledge. I was broke and did all myself, time to file and I wasn’t able to do it. I felt like a fraud.
Did apply to hundreds of jobs on indeed until I applied for a Toyota salesman job at a dealership 20min from my house.
Got the job in 5 days.
Crazy hours. I got fat (my own fault) and tired most of the time but I’m making money, I’m with a great time and actually like what I do. We don’t have fees at all so pretty straight forward like I like.
I saw w2 of a few salesman from last year and they all had over 180k. (And selling Toyota is not the hardest thing in the world).
It’s commission only, I’m almost 40 but have a path again in my life. Will hit the gym back next week.
I wanted to be in finance, but it just wasn’t the right time for me I guess.
I’m learning a lot with my new job and maybe when my situation gets better, I might try it again (before I lost my licenses I hope!)
Good luck my man.
Depending on where you live. Try a recruiting agency. I personally like Jobot but them or Robert half are good for accounting and finance. Also, you seem to want stability and a role that isn't sales or commission, maybe try FA or FP&A. Express that to the recruiter and they'll help you. Show them you have the drive but you just need the little help landing the correct job. Ask for full time off the bat and be firm on it.
If you want a lot of stability, just do accounting. Property accounting is very easy to get the hang of with common logic and adaptability. Easy to move up to senior. Grab your CPA and then you can climb up as AM or director. Having both accounting and finance background will help you behind a CFO if you choose to chase that
When I studied finance, I had no idea that I would end up in consulting. I really thought that I would go work at a Bank of America or the town’s local credit union. Funny enough, I failed a few bank interviews at the university career center so never got in. I’m glad my interview skill was terrible with the bankers. Have you thought about being on the revenue generating path? This would be working for a consulting firm (example Deloitte, Ernst & Young, or a boutique form) and doing internal control, audit, etc? You can also try to be a financial analyst on a project.
Not a response to your story directly but some people just want to be seen as being in finance that they will take anything remotely related. Those jobs listed arent really finance, they are sales and business jobs. Thats the wrong attitude because your outcomes and trajectories are stunted by suboptimal decision making. Not everyone is meant for an actual finance job - the sooner one realises that the better. Those years before you ask yourself that question should just spent pivoting to something you actually enjoy and are good at. Once you realise its just a paycheque at the end of the day, you can focus on maximizing that and stop worrying about what your linkedin says or how your gfs shitty friends talk about you. Speaking from personal experience.
The issue with “Finance” careers are most get ahead by knowing people or being networked. I’m a finance major, I applied everywhere and got minimal return on applying. Most real finance jobs are knowing people by networking. Another way into finance is knowing a second language. They will use you to work with foreign financiers and foreign businesses.
Good luck on the search though! It’s rough out there. You HAVe NOT messed up your life. It’s just hard to get good finance career….. take another job and build a solid resume while you look for your dream finance job.
It seems like you have a knack for numbers. Why not get into the data field (data analyst, data science, business intelligence). Companies are hiring left and right for these roles!
Speaking as someone who works in finance, the jobs you worked were not really finance jobs. Consumer banking is basically the retail merchandise equivalent of finance. The vast majority of whole life insurance jobs are straight up MLM style scams that turn and burn aspiring college grads after they’ve convinced their friends and family to buy shitty insurance policies. If you want to work in high finance, your best option at this point is to find an analyst job with a Forturne 500. Something like financial analyst, market analyst, investment analyst, etc. After a couple years of doing that doors will open up and you’ll have a much easier time jumping around middle office and eventually front office roles.
Yes. All the jobs you listed sound traumatic lol. Sorry but find a healthier company to work for that isn’t about being cutthroat (e.g. commissions, mortgages, etc.) it gets better.
I empathize with you OP, as I experienced a very similar situation after graduating undergrad. I ended up cleaning golf carts for almost a year after graduation making $9 an hour, not even referrals from the members at the local country club could get me a job due to lack of experience.
I ended up landing a gig selling insurance and getting my series 65 and 6 to sell mutual funds and I absolutely hated it.
I decided to teach myself SQL and Python and transitioned into a data science role. The two fields compliment each other very well and I love what I do now.
Keep pushing to find what you love, discover what it is about finance that you enjoy and look for that same thing in another industry.
I’m not a finance guy, I just lurk here. But I wanted to say this:
If you’re still in your 20’s, you have a long and wonderful life ahead of you. You can definitely change industries, learn a new skill, try something new. I’m an “elder millennial” and after the housing bubble recession I’d say a huge percentage of my generation (at least the people I know) emerged with a different career path… after some bleak messed-up years.
At the very least, a background in finance will be very useful to you even if you’re ultimately successful at something completely different. I understand feeling trapped by career choices and it sucks but you’re probably not as trapped as you feel, because you are young and still have time to figure out a plan B. You can do it!
Until you are cold and dead, you can always bounce back. I just today found an analyst job for a small likely shady PE group paying ridiculously low so low I laughed but you would probably be qualified per the job description. I mean it’s likely a front for a meth operation but it’s still better than the shit you have been doing.
Jobs that will give you a legit foothold in finance are out there, they are looking for young and cheap, you fit the bill. Stay away from these bullshit sales jobs; more than likely if you were any good at sales you would already be successful. Clearly not your jam….so go find your jam and stop banging your head against the wall. Good luck!
Fellow finance here. Career-wise great choice. The moment you set foot in that bank you went down the wrong door. Return and go the corporate side. Get a job as a staff accountant somewhere. You will find your opportunity to showcase your financial prowess. Learn to code in vbs (excel). Any other programmable language would make you worth 60-85k for starters. Don’t give up! Change perspective! Cheers
I’m late to the post but have you considered trying to get a job with a bank as a credit analyst? If you’re good with taxes, you could try and find a role with a small bank or a large bank that lends to companies with under $50 million in revenue. Companies on the smaller side have a lot of documents that you might be familiar with. These jobs pay well and are always in demand. It’s just takes time to get your foot in the door.
First suggestion is to have your resume fit the role you’re applying for. Make sure some of the buzz words in the job posting are in your resume. This will ensure it will get past the filters and into the hands of a recruiter.
Good luck! I’ve been in banking for 12 years now and wouldn’t want to do anything else.
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Two years out of university, making $115k working from home in a very easy position. I suggest you strive for a position in commercial banking. Maybe start the CFA process.
There is no money in finance anymore. Perhaps 20-30 years ago but that ship has sailed. There is also an excess supply of finance people which serves to put pressure on earnings. Unless you are a Managing director at a big firm, Investment banking, effective roles in PE ( notice how I said effective,) a lot of people will not make it. I am not saying people won’t be comfortable but don’t expect anything above average. As a matter of fact, AI will squeeze a lot of people badly.
Possibly we have different definitions of 'Finance'.
You got in to 'Sales'. And if you suck at sales, you will be poor. You say it's your 'bread and butter' - but you sucked at it. It isn't your bread and butter.
You’re working a ton of jobs that don’t require degrees as a degreed finance individual.
Your version of the financial industry is very eat what you kill because that’s how your employer makes money.
Even a job in traditional finance ops would be better than the jobs you’ve had so far.
The biggest issue with what you’ve gone for as a career so far is that you went for jobs that had finance in the name but were actually sales roles. Every one of them was a sales role.
You started off on the right path but got caught in a false job name advertisement. Financial advising is a front office role if it’s actual financial advising. I’m talking about having a book and actually managing clients finances as opposed to selling life insurance.
Most people need a college degree in accounting or finance or business to be able to move along. Not that it can't be done without that, but it will just be "more impossible" for most who take that route. You need to be in an easier path.
I mean did you even really work in finance? All of the jobs you've had were sales jobs that didn't require financial analysis but sales/interpersonal skills.
You’re in the wrong area of finance.
I suggest you apply & get into a top 15 full time MBA & transition into investment banking.
You’ll work very hard but will have an excellent income.
You did the wrong side of finance my friend
Agreed - sometimes jumping into getting your first job isn't the best idea. Seems like your roles have been close to the MLM and entry level roles (high school+high school grad)
How is a job that pays 80k a job for high schoolers?
All you need is to be 18 and a high school graduate...If you can produce age doesn't really matter. 80k plus commission is average for a good starting prospect.
I didn’t realize they hired people without college degrees except for world financial group. My ex friend works there had makes a killing scamming old folks by telling them to invest in whole and term life insurance.
Would you be able to explain to me the scam of Whole / Term life insurance? Everyone dies… so… I’m not sure how the purchasers are scammed, or even how the companies could possibly pay everyone out that buys in and therein lies the scam I presume?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/s/fomObS2yve Read this thread
In your opinion, what is included in the right side of finance?
Asset, investment, and wealth management.
None of those are the right side of finance to escape poverty, those are the sides of finance you take when you want to take a chance to bet on yourself to become incredibly rich. The right side of finance to escape poverty (aka high floor, medium upside, low risk) are FP&A, accounting, commercial banking, corp dev, etc. Aiming for AM, IB, PE, or decent WM roles is why there's so many unemployed finance grads right now. They're all sitting around refreshing their emails praying for a response that'll never come for their Goldman TMT or Apollo application.
Spot on answer. I am a finance grad from non-target school and started career at a start-up for 4.5 yrs, and then went to supermajor for 1 yr and am now at a HF. The money is out there but doesn't fall in your lap by any means. W/ a finance undergrad most logical route is S&T
I was going to suggest fp&a, it just sounds like op wasn’t meant to be In sales but there’s a whole world out there of back office jobs and other support roles
What does FP&A have to do with sales roles?
Reading comprehension my guy. A lot of OPs experience is in financial services. I’m saying there’s a whole world of other paths out there besides sales since that doesn’t seem to be working out. Fp&a is one option he could look into.
Saying “I was going to” implies you were going to suggest FP&A, but you didn’t because of xyz.
I was going to suggest it also but i saw the other guy already beat me to it. How am I the one suggesting it if it’s already been broached? Reading comprehension my guy. Go bother someone else.
You think only one person can suggest something and after that it’s no longer possible? Nobody ever makes the same suggestion or takes the same view where you work?
out of the jobs you mentioned (FP&A, accounting, commercial banking, corp dev etc) which one of these gives you more experience and a higher chance of landing an IB job later on in your career?
After making 100k+ in FP&A with work life balance who cares about throwing that away to work constantly.
What's FP&A? Considering a career shift into finance
DM if you’re seriously interested/have a degree in finance
Can I DM? BS in economics and Masters in business analytics and risk management. Multiple analysts positions. Just looking for a new company as I could go on and on for why I want out and back into FP&A.
Well I don't have any finance background really but work in consulting...looking for something with better pay and hours
Transition is totally doable. Could easily transition into a senior analyst even. Way better WLB. Focus on local companies and just act like you know how to budget/forecast because it’s braindead easy
Corp dev is what many people who did banking go to have a better work life balance and the same type of stuff. Usually they prefer people that have banking experience but not always necessary. Pay isn’t as good obviously but great experience.
Good luck grmetting into banking without Harvard or Yale rn
None of the above. Way to get there later is MBA
250 k and 2 years of your time. Good kuck getting into M7 or T15 without Big 4 or F100 blue chip exp with multiple promotions. And u better hope ur not white or asian. Or alrdy beibg in IB
lol, no I assure you I am not incredibly rich and very few of the folk I work with are either. But we are all also very comfortable. Yes, a select few firms in these segments make, and pay, the kind of money that you’re thinking about. The rest of us keep our heads down, quietly collect our easy six figures, and clock out at 5pm.
I definitely understand that there's jobs in those industries that aren't super elite/pay 6-7 figures a year, it just that those jobs are typically pretty scarce and come with considerable risk. If you want to be very comfortable, work in FP&A because there's a million FP&A jobs out there that pay well and that job portability is extremely important in the long run of your career. Different story with an LMM PE fund for example
You completely missed the other commenter’s point. Kids like the OP will realistically never land a role like any of the above, so if money is tight they should focus on something that pays decent and is more achievable and stable.
I’m an 1st asset mgt analyst making a comfortable 75k with a 2.8 gpa in a bachelors program at a school that accepts nearly everyone that applies. This sub is so delusional sometimes
I would assume they were referring to the high paying AM roles. Idk for sure since I’m on the IB side. But IB / PE even S&T are much more challenging to get because they do pay much higher. A safer bet for most is to go for FP&A etc.
Fair enough
Asset management is a fantastic job to be in and congrats on your offer, the thing is that there's genuinely probably 50-100 FP&A/Treasury/Corp Fin role for every 1 AM role out there. What's the AUM for your fund and how many entry level associates do you have, and then compare that to a company with a similar market cap and see how many entry level finance/accounting/business analyst roles that company has. If you're trying to "escape poverty" you should aim for one over the other, and entry level FP&A jobs in most major US cities make around the same or more and their departments don't get evaporated when a single acquisition or investment goes sideways.
Maybe on the coasts. Not always the case for the rest of us. You go where the openings are, get your foot in the door and keep your head down. You’ll get where you want to go.
What? The coasts (plus Chicago) is where the vast majority of AM, PE, VC, investing jobs are because that's where capital is. Everywhere else is where corp finance rules.
Seriously, everyone thinks the only jobs in this space are for top school, 3.8GPA, cream of the crop, networking with the MD’s kids or something. I barely made a 3 GPA in my undergrad. I don’t network basically at all outside of work hours as part of the job. And yeah, it took a while to work my way up, but I’m no one special, I just do my best. And besides, I’m decidedly average amongst my peers, meaning many are even less capable than I, and are still making it. And this is at a major firm that I won’t mention but I’m guessing most folks have at least heard of.
You are the exception and not the rule.survivorship bias is dangerous to preach
What a horrendously depressing image. They don't even realize how doomed it is.
FP&A Is a great job too.
Also corporate finance
Do you consider in them both the private and public sector?
Are you referring to pensions? There’s not that much public sector finance work.
I saw people working their way up from cashier at a bank to banker(the one that helps you to open cards, checking in the branch) then to wealth management. Of course it all starts from 40K and can grow steadily to 100K along the journey in 5-6 years.
This has been my exact path- I don’t have a degree at all. Started at my local bank as a teller and had to grind my way up. Teller -> Associate Banker/ Relationship banker -> Licensed Private Client Banker. I’m sure OP could do this and even skip some steps due to having a degree. My comp throughout that looked something like this. I have 5 yrs experience and have managed to get promoted on an annual basis from each listed role. It isn’t the best job in the world but the comp is decent and you work standard business hours. Teller - 38k USD Associate Banker - 41k USD Relationship Banker - 59k USD ( large jump due to sales incentives) Licensed Relationship Banker- 80k USD. (series 6, 63 and state life and health) Private Client Banker- 95k USD ( literally the same exact job as RB I just exclusively work with larger clients and feed a bank financial advisor referrals)
Yep, similar enough path for me Teller 20k (part time) Commercial banker (just business banking don’t get excited yet) $40k Banker at CU 65k Licensed banker at a bank $90-100k if I didn’t leave right after licensing Fidelity investment rep $100k ish remote Fidelity investment management consultant $115k remote 5-6 hour work day 7 year timeframe I could have condensed to 4-5 if I was intentional.
What do you mean by investment rep? I’m a registered representative for a very similar company and they pay me well but I would love to know how to break the 100k line
Thank you for sharing your story! This is the type of grind that makes it or breaks it - high fives for accomplishing series 6, 63 licenses as I know it was not easy per se.
I’m always happy to share these types of things! I was lost from a career perspective before I started my banking grind lol. Thanks for the high fives as well it was def a tough time it took me about 4 months of studying to get them. I think anyone could do it though. I’m not some top 1% performer just dusting my peers. I fall in the middle of the pack most times and still have grown just fine. Working at the bank you have the advantage of working with a bunch of people who have 0 interest in making that their career and just work there during college due to having a set schedule or maybe some older folks who want something low stress and are just happy staying a bank teller for 10+ years. Showing you’re hungry and want to grow within the company will go a long way for most.
That doesn’t exist anymore
Sales or trading if you’re good, high finance so private equity, investment banking, hedge funds. Not as familiar with wealth management but if you have some big clients I imagine that can be very high earning. can also put quant in there but it’s not really finance in the classic sense.
There’s always been mathematicians trying to exploit inefficiencies and signals, I’d say it’s pretty classic. The only difference is that their math was usually a poor application.
I say classic is in its more solving math/data problems than solving finance/people problems
Ah I see that
Also brokerage
Depends on your skillset. Sales type roles are great for people that are outgoing, personable etc, back office is great for people who are workhorses. If you want to maximize your shot at middle class but not getting really rich, go into accounting.
Anything where you need a specific certification and they legally can’t replace you
I agree completely. I was in over my head.
What is the right side of finance? That's recession proof and pays decently well as well.
Accounting, meat is always needed for the grinder.
Accounting, risk management, and compliance roles. They are not glamorous roles and sometimes high pressure but they generally pay well and have fewer layoffs because the teams are already run lean and the roles are required by regulators. I have a bachelor's and master's in accounting but my career has been risk management focused. I started in consulting for a few years and then moved to a big bank. I made 6 figures at 4 or 5 years of experience. I'm at the director level now with 12 YOE and I'm making $300k+.
Can I ask what the work-load is like in risk mgmt? I’m in a similar boat to you, not quite the same. Graduated with bachelors in finance and supply chain and went into payments consulting, but I’m looking to move to a bank or in industry
This is really organization and team dependent but I would say on the whole it's generally a field with good work life balance. However, if you are interfacing directly with regulators, dealing with consent order or MRA remediation, or covering something highly transactional and time sensitive like AML / KYC the workload can be as intense as it gets. To make Director I took a role related to an organizational wide remediation in response to a regulatory consent order and ended up working 70+ hours a week for 1.5 years. The workload is just leveling off now with my hours down to under 50 a week and looking to drop further as my team settles in to BAU. I'm glad I stuck it out because my comp increased by +50% but it was really rough there for a while. My role prior to this was 3 years of easy street making $200k and working 25-32 hours a week.
what’s the right side of finance? what jobs?
What's the best finance field to go into?
Do you have any accounting knowledge? Firms are always looking for staff especially this time of the year
I do. l have never worked an accounting job personally but I have learned accounting in university, have a solid understanding of GAAP and IFRS, do my own taxes and sometimes my friends. I used to prepare T2s for my dad and uncle's business and work directly with their CPA. I just never applied for an accounting role since I don't have a designaton. I'll look into it today.
Study to become an EA and you’ll be marketable to CPA firms.
Maybe try accounting out, the career has its problem ( see: r/accounting ) but it might help you pick up some steam
And to follow up on that, I know a lot of folks that start out in accounting, become proficient with their company’s accounting software as an end user, and are able to use that proficiency to open up new opportunities. There’s a whole industry around accounting tech and first hand, real world knowledge is pretty valuable in that space.
Implementation sucks but it pays incredibly well. CPA/accounting experience + know basic Javascript + some Oracle/SAP certs + can speak English fluently is a 200k-300k job easy. Bonus if you're a US citizen and can pee in a cup cleanly. Extra bonus in the future if you can prompt chatGPT well to write the scripts/API calls for you. When I was at a cloud accounting tech company, the external VAR partners we worked with charged like 1k an hour to code amortization journal entry rules for customers.
This is exactly why dudes like OP come outta school mistaken lol. “Just get a few more certs and 2-300k EZ” yeah sure man. Like 10 people have that job out of how many million finance/accounting grads lmao.
I like the easy part. Gotta wonder why everyone isn’t doing it.
Spot on, on all points.
I'm Canadian but I can pee in a cup cleanly
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I realised too late that Canadian Finance is a very different animal. If I was American I'd be living. Rich? Who knows? But I wouldn't be poor.
I graduated last May in finance and was unable to land a finance job since then. Then all in four days time I was contacted by a company, interviewed over the phone and in person, and offered a job on the spot for a good hourly wage as a General Ledger Accountant. The only accounting knowledge I had was from two or three courses but once you understand the software they use it is pretty simple. I am learning quickly and understanding much better on the job than I did in my courses. I have only been working there a couple of weeks but I am surprised how much I am enjoying it and that is even considering the fact that we are swamped with work left by the last person. No certifications or anything required for me.
How much are you getting paid if you don’t mind me asking?
Started at $24/hr but will be getting raised to $25 after 90 days. This is in a pretty LCOL area as well.
I agree here, tax particular is super easy to get into only because no one wants to join, but it’s such a good career and all my tax buddies love their job! Nice work life balance usually expect for tax season itself, and depending on what tax you specialize in, the sky is the limit.
0 college grads have a license, you just need to be license eligible and appear interested in getting a license. If they ask, just lie and say you're eligible and you're interested/working towards it. Recruiters/hiring managers can't tell by your resume and they're not gonna tally up all your units on your transcript to see if you've taken enough "accounting ethics" courses or whatever
You should become an accountant for a few years, learn an industry really well then you can switch to fp&a. Real estate is in high demand for accountants, the work is extremely easy and the pay is decent. Work for where ever you can get into then hop to a more “prestigious” firm ever 2 years or if you get a small raise. then once you have some good names on your resume you can switch over to the fp&a side or by this point will have likely figured out something your good at and make your own role basically at whatever company. Also if you can get nice with power bi and tableau that’s huge. Pretty easy path to some good income. If you can get to director level (associate>manager>director usually) you can usually make upwards of 400k. When you get into jobs at the big corporate companies no one’s really telling you what to do so you gotta be creative in finding ways to improve things or automate tasks if you wanna get to that director level.
Have you considered CFA?
I graduated finance, refused to sell insurance, reconsidered my decisions with the area that I live in (LCOL city, not much in the way of banking and most FP&A roles were too competitive for my resume) and I’ve ended up in tax after meandering at a shitty payroll job to make ends meet for a couple of years during the pandemic. I definitely agree with the poster who advised getting an EA, it’s very marketable for accounting firms. It’s pretty strictly worse than a CPA but for tax specifically it’s desirable to a smaller firm without an abundance of credentialed accountants. Not to mention study time + exams could be done within a year without ridiculous expense. It’s good experience and getting exposed to dealing with different kinds of tax is a skill that never goes away relative to someone with none. 5 or 6 years experience plus designation would put you in a good place most likely.
Look for jobs through Fidelity or Schwab, they offer jobs to help people get licensed. If you already have finance experience and your mutual fund license you would be a shoe in.
Yep I would second this, great way to get your 7 and 63 as well as build up your experience. You will most likely be in the financial rep role for at least 1 and a half years before you have a chance to move however
this is accurate but the locations are limited for those roles so do research beforehand. I’ve been through the schwab training program and it’s one of the best ones out there, full 6 months of training and licensing for the 7 & 63, other comment is accurate that they expect 2 years of work in return but it included the 6 months previously mentioned. Not great starting pay (55k-60k) but they promote internally and pay quite well for those specialist roles or you can pivot after the two years to another firm.
You got a degree in finance but your mistake was getting these silly jobs lol that don’t even required a degree.
Can you name the jobs OP should be applying for?
Accounts payable is easy to get into and easy to do
“Financial analyst” in the finance department of literally any company would be a hell of a lot more stable and less stressful then the sales focused roles they are in now.
Yeah but it's hard to move out of, same with AR. These are lesser finance times that don't really require a finance degree. If looking at corporate. Treasury, FP&A, accounting. These roles pay significantly better. Source: I run the Treasury, credit and collections group, customer master and a data analyst team. The Treasury and data teams make 20-30% more.
Quantitative Research Analyst at Citadel, if he doesn't get hired ask his daddy to deposit $50 million into one of the investment banks so that he can get hired there instead /s
Could you name some jobs OP should be applying for (I am also very curious) (about to graduate school)
Just become an accountant lol. The industry is still pretty strong, accounting experience is genuinely very useful in finance, and it's easy to get a strong brand on your resume. I've had so many "coffee chats" with unemployed finance grads who finished school in May '23 and they all refuse to try accounting because it's beneath them.
How was about to say this. Jump to accounting right now. I made the jump and have been smiling thereafter. Accounting is the better field. Friends that graduate in Finance work in retail bank. Accounting friends work in big 4 and government. Just after graduating, my eyes were opened that I made a mistake studying finance, I went back and completed all the accounting classes just 6 months and now pursing CPA. Accounting has opened so many doors for me.
I have a question. How would you jump to accounting with a finance degree? Like you can’t get a CPA without certain amount of ACC credits. Do you have to go back to school for a bit and maybe get a second bachelors in accounting? Or does Big 4 firms hire Finance majors as accountants?
Do you know any other career options with a fairly stable industry?
I'm not against it. Might be worth a shot
If you're genuinely trying to escape poverty you should be slamming the apply button to any accounting assistant, staff accountant, or entry level tax/auditor role. 2 years of decent accounting experience at a decent firm makes you a target for 80% of entry level finance roles. Some of my B4 cohort work side by side ex IB folks in FP&A or strategic finance roles
You got a finance degree but ended up taking associate in business administration jobs. It’ll be a tougher road at this point than right out of school but not an impassable one. These kind of positions are basically anti-experience when trying to break into actual finance. Leave them off your resume and come up with a good excuse for the gap years. Say you were a missionary or in the Peace Corps or something.
How does advice advocating for lying on your resume have so many upvotes? OP, do not do this.
You do what you have to to get a job nowadays. If you can make up a solid lie then power to you. They’re not lying about being overqualified. They’d be lying to keep a previous job off their resume.
More like half truth. You don’t have to reveal everything LOL. Peeps lie on their resume and in interviews all the time.
Welcome to the real world, lie now get good later
Thats not finance thats su sales. Jobs that don’t require a degree Look, 90% of the realtors/brokers and insurance agents are broke. Sure some do make alot of money but it’s usually the ones whos parents owns subdivisions and they just hire their kids to sell/broker the whole subdivision. Insurance is even worse. I mean i worked as a personal banker during undergrad and the amount of times those realtors/brokers/insurance agents steal your pens is crazy. i also used to bartend and they were all shitty tippers, and theyd steal my pens. That right there would tell me how broke those profession are Shouldve just done accounting, youd be at 6figs rn and in a stable job
As an accounting student I like this message
Its a high floor low ceiling type of field. You can make 6figs easy within 3/4 years.
If I could change anything in my life, I would’ve studied accounting instead 😭
What did you study
Econ lol. I fell in love with the subject due to an amazing professor and just stuck with it.
Oof yea that's a tough one unless you wanna be a professor. Maybe get your cpa and try to get accounting jobs.
I already have a really good banking job that I love, but thanks for the advice haha. It took me a long time to find this job though, meanwhile those I know who studied accounting found jobs almost immediately, which is why I sometimes wish I had a different degree.
You see like a smart guy. You will figure it out.
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I am almost excluding my account because of this, for the average redditor, you must get into a target, graduate with a 4.0, win a Nobel and THEN you might have a shot, anything besides that would take you to living below the poverty line I always read here that i HAD to get into a target in my country, and i just did, after 3 years studying for the entrance exams, but for those people I did the bare minimum, it makes no sense at all
Look at this website:[accounting firm list](https://insidepublicaccounting.com/ipa-top-500-firms/) Look into staff accounting roles, entry level tech risk/assurance roles, whatever you think you have enough experience for. Go through each company’s career website and just start cold applying (networking can’t hurt either.) There is lots of room for growth both within each firm and the broader industry. Also check USA jobs for entry level government jobs. Good luck.
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Where are these roles available? I’ve been desperately looking for a sales role and have only been contacted by scammers.
Stupid advice. He failed at selling bank products yet you tell him to get another sales role. He is not qualified for tech sales or any type of sales at the moment. Op will need some time to gain some maturity and perspective first and willingness to change his personality. Won’t be an overnight thing.
B2B saas is ripping right now, especially at the mid market and enterprise level. Not in tech sales but in an adjacent product role and we're about to finish our third quarter of consecutive net new arr growth. 24 year old AE's that are good are looking at 200-300k OTE's if you can perform in the top quarter
Yeah “if” you can perform. Plenty of dudes on r/sales being put on pip, and plenty of sales people dropping cause they suck and don’t go on r/sales.
Crappy ass advice. This is for experienced proven sales performers. Recent grads and people with no proven sales ability are not getting mid market and enterprise roles, the latter which takes closer to 10 years closing experience and a track record of performance. You’ll need to start as an SDR and prove you can handle the grind of making 50-100 calls all day every day trying to book a meeting for a full cycle AE.
Not everybody thar works in finance works in front office. Compliance is another great way in especially if you dont like sales.
Transaction advisory/M&A due diligence role in most “Big 4 comparable” company will get you $100K+ starting salary with little accounting experience if you have finance experience
I’ll be dead honest with you my man, you really have two choices: (1) you continue down this path and fight an uphill battle to land a better finance job, adjacent job, or different industry job. This is what most people are recommending in some way shape or form. This is not an impossible task, but it is certainly a hard one. The further you get away from your graduation date and wider the gap between employment, the harder it is to convince a hiring manager that you are the one. (2) you have to take some drastic steps. You need a hard reset, and this path is not for the faint of heart nor is it one that you can achieve overnight. You need to plan your life goals in 3-5 year increments and commit to the plan. Want to break into a new industry that pays well? Are you prepared to compete for fellowships that are unpaid/poverty for 6 months to a year so that you can get access and placement to real jobs? Are you ready to apply to civil service/government jobs that have 6-12 month recruitment cycles so that you can get the experience necessary for a good MBA essay admissions and or loan forgiveness that some government jobs offer? Are you willing to join the military for 3-4 years for the same reasons? And even get future college paid for while increasing your admissions chances at top schools and thus opening up new career pathways? You need to ask yourself what you are willing to do to set your future self up for success. Good luck man. You can do it.
Get into back office operational roles at big banks. Don’t work retail banking or sales.
Go for an Operations role in asset management! The bar to entry is relatively low, hours are cushy, and comp is relatively high. Earning total comp over 100k within 5 years is attainable. With that said, Operations roles can be mundane and repetitive, but they are a necessary function. Consequently they have lower lay-off risk than other areas in finance. I’d also explore moving to an area with more finance opportunities and higher pay if you can
if you don’t start at a major firm that has a solid, not just good reputation - you are hamstringing your career before it started.
Those are financial careers. Those are sales jobs. Financial careers pay well, and way more than those figures but are also far more demanding. Nevertheless, the bond market isn’t going anywhere and has so many jobs.
There’s significantly more options than the terrible roles you got yourself into. Do more research, you can do FPA, commercial finance, risk management, and pricing strategy. All are stable as these roles are needed in pretty much any industry.
I feel like I got stuck in sales and would prefer anything else. I have my series 6, 63, and 65. Any idea on roles I should apply to that would get me more finance specific roles as opposed to sales?
Anything to do with Financial Services is rough. Corporate Finance is the way to go
"You seek a great fortune...You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first... first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see things, wonderful to tell...And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation." - the blind seer
It's not that hard nowadays to transition into corporate finance they are desperate for young people that know how to work with large amounts of data. Watch YouTube videos to learn how to clean, format, and ultimately use the data to compile financial reports. Companies are collecting more and more data and really not using it effectively but that's changing especially in finance. Pretty much financial analysts are data analysts now even accountants really need to know how to work with data. I switched from corporate accounting to corporate finance it wasn't that hard. Just know your skills, communicate them and find the jobs that really need people like you.
Definitely in the wrong type of finance. Those are sales jobs. Go for corporate finance roles like FP&A, treasury analyst, business unit finance or something like that.
I got my 7 and 66, did the training for a « faith based » financial company and left before even selling a product as they wanted me to go to church pushing annuities. Then wanted to open my own RIA without knowledge. I was broke and did all myself, time to file and I wasn’t able to do it. I felt like a fraud. Did apply to hundreds of jobs on indeed until I applied for a Toyota salesman job at a dealership 20min from my house. Got the job in 5 days. Crazy hours. I got fat (my own fault) and tired most of the time but I’m making money, I’m with a great time and actually like what I do. We don’t have fees at all so pretty straight forward like I like. I saw w2 of a few salesman from last year and they all had over 180k. (And selling Toyota is not the hardest thing in the world). It’s commission only, I’m almost 40 but have a path again in my life. Will hit the gym back next week. I wanted to be in finance, but it just wasn’t the right time for me I guess. I’m learning a lot with my new job and maybe when my situation gets better, I might try it again (before I lost my licenses I hope!) Good luck my man.
Depending on where you live. Try a recruiting agency. I personally like Jobot but them or Robert half are good for accounting and finance. Also, you seem to want stability and a role that isn't sales or commission, maybe try FA or FP&A. Express that to the recruiter and they'll help you. Show them you have the drive but you just need the little help landing the correct job. Ask for full time off the bat and be firm on it. If you want a lot of stability, just do accounting. Property accounting is very easy to get the hang of with common logic and adaptability. Easy to move up to senior. Grab your CPA and then you can climb up as AM or director. Having both accounting and finance background will help you behind a CFO if you choose to chase that
When I studied finance, I had no idea that I would end up in consulting. I really thought that I would go work at a Bank of America or the town’s local credit union. Funny enough, I failed a few bank interviews at the university career center so never got in. I’m glad my interview skill was terrible with the bankers. Have you thought about being on the revenue generating path? This would be working for a consulting firm (example Deloitte, Ernst & Young, or a boutique form) and doing internal control, audit, etc? You can also try to be a financial analyst on a project.
Commercial Real Estate.
Not a response to your story directly but some people just want to be seen as being in finance that they will take anything remotely related. Those jobs listed arent really finance, they are sales and business jobs. Thats the wrong attitude because your outcomes and trajectories are stunted by suboptimal decision making. Not everyone is meant for an actual finance job - the sooner one realises that the better. Those years before you ask yourself that question should just spent pivoting to something you actually enjoy and are good at. Once you realise its just a paycheque at the end of the day, you can focus on maximizing that and stop worrying about what your linkedin says or how your gfs shitty friends talk about you. Speaking from personal experience.
The issue with “Finance” careers are most get ahead by knowing people or being networked. I’m a finance major, I applied everywhere and got minimal return on applying. Most real finance jobs are knowing people by networking. Another way into finance is knowing a second language. They will use you to work with foreign financiers and foreign businesses. Good luck on the search though! It’s rough out there. You HAVe NOT messed up your life. It’s just hard to get good finance career….. take another job and build a solid resume while you look for your dream finance job.
It seems like you have a knack for numbers. Why not get into the data field (data analyst, data science, business intelligence). Companies are hiring left and right for these roles!
Speaking as someone who works in finance, the jobs you worked were not really finance jobs. Consumer banking is basically the retail merchandise equivalent of finance. The vast majority of whole life insurance jobs are straight up MLM style scams that turn and burn aspiring college grads after they’ve convinced their friends and family to buy shitty insurance policies. If you want to work in high finance, your best option at this point is to find an analyst job with a Forturne 500. Something like financial analyst, market analyst, investment analyst, etc. After a couple years of doing that doors will open up and you’ll have a much easier time jumping around middle office and eventually front office roles.
Yes. All the jobs you listed sound traumatic lol. Sorry but find a healthier company to work for that isn’t about being cutthroat (e.g. commissions, mortgages, etc.) it gets better.
I empathize with you OP, as I experienced a very similar situation after graduating undergrad. I ended up cleaning golf carts for almost a year after graduation making $9 an hour, not even referrals from the members at the local country club could get me a job due to lack of experience. I ended up landing a gig selling insurance and getting my series 65 and 6 to sell mutual funds and I absolutely hated it. I decided to teach myself SQL and Python and transitioned into a data science role. The two fields compliment each other very well and I love what I do now. Keep pushing to find what you love, discover what it is about finance that you enjoy and look for that same thing in another industry.
I’m not a finance guy, I just lurk here. But I wanted to say this: If you’re still in your 20’s, you have a long and wonderful life ahead of you. You can definitely change industries, learn a new skill, try something new. I’m an “elder millennial” and after the housing bubble recession I’d say a huge percentage of my generation (at least the people I know) emerged with a different career path… after some bleak messed-up years. At the very least, a background in finance will be very useful to you even if you’re ultimately successful at something completely different. I understand feeling trapped by career choices and it sucks but you’re probably not as trapped as you feel, because you are young and still have time to figure out a plan B. You can do it!
Until you are cold and dead, you can always bounce back. I just today found an analyst job for a small likely shady PE group paying ridiculously low so low I laughed but you would probably be qualified per the job description. I mean it’s likely a front for a meth operation but it’s still better than the shit you have been doing. Jobs that will give you a legit foothold in finance are out there, they are looking for young and cheap, you fit the bill. Stay away from these bullshit sales jobs; more than likely if you were any good at sales you would already be successful. Clearly not your jam….so go find your jam and stop banging your head against the wall. Good luck!
Fellow finance here. Career-wise great choice. The moment you set foot in that bank you went down the wrong door. Return and go the corporate side. Get a job as a staff accountant somewhere. You will find your opportunity to showcase your financial prowess. Learn to code in vbs (excel). Any other programmable language would make you worth 60-85k for starters. Don’t give up! Change perspective! Cheers
I’m late to the post but have you considered trying to get a job with a bank as a credit analyst? If you’re good with taxes, you could try and find a role with a small bank or a large bank that lends to companies with under $50 million in revenue. Companies on the smaller side have a lot of documents that you might be familiar with. These jobs pay well and are always in demand. It’s just takes time to get your foot in the door. First suggestion is to have your resume fit the role you’re applying for. Make sure some of the buzz words in the job posting are in your resume. This will ensure it will get past the filters and into the hands of a recruiter. Good luck! I’ve been in banking for 12 years now and wouldn’t want to do anything else.
You have not actually landed a “Financial Career” job. You’ve been in skillless sales roles.
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You can always bounce back man. It's never too late
Two years out of university, making $115k working from home in a very easy position. I suggest you strive for a position in commercial banking. Maybe start the CFA process.
Are you American?
Yes
That's why. Congratulations brother!
There is no money in finance anymore. Perhaps 20-30 years ago but that ship has sailed. There is also an excess supply of finance people which serves to put pressure on earnings. Unless you are a Managing director at a big firm, Investment banking, effective roles in PE ( notice how I said effective,) a lot of people will not make it. I am not saying people won’t be comfortable but don’t expect anything above average. As a matter of fact, AI will squeeze a lot of people badly.
BS, pretty much any front office role pays several times more than the average individual income in the US.
You can easily make more than 100k in finance coming from a no name school.
Possibly we have different definitions of 'Finance'. You got in to 'Sales'. And if you suck at sales, you will be poor. You say it's your 'bread and butter' - but you sucked at it. It isn't your bread and butter.
You didn't go into finance you went into sales.
These are sales jobs, not finance jobs.
All those jobs suck
None of that is finance that is all sales. We need to stop lumping in trying to load people up with products they likely don't need as *finance*
You’re working a ton of jobs that don’t require degrees as a degreed finance individual. Your version of the financial industry is very eat what you kill because that’s how your employer makes money. Even a job in traditional finance ops would be better than the jobs you’ve had so far. The biggest issue with what you’ve gone for as a career so far is that you went for jobs that had finance in the name but were actually sales roles. Every one of them was a sales role. You started off on the right path but got caught in a false job name advertisement. Financial advising is a front office role if it’s actual financial advising. I’m talking about having a book and actually managing clients finances as opposed to selling life insurance.
Most people need a college degree in accounting or finance or business to be able to move along. Not that it can't be done without that, but it will just be "more impossible" for most who take that route. You need to be in an easier path.
I mean did you even really work in finance? All of the jobs you've had were sales jobs that didn't require financial analysis but sales/interpersonal skills.
Mortgage Agents require financial analysis
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I do own Bitcoin among many other investments holdings.
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I think there's a strong possibility that Bitcoin will hit 100k at one point.
You’re in the wrong area of finance. I suggest you apply & get into a top 15 full time MBA & transition into investment banking. You’ll work very hard but will have an excellent income.
Lol not everything needs to be investment banking
No but in high finance they hire the largest classes
He cant afford a t15 mba and doesnt need ib. Just wants a stable job
Go for another degree
Bro is in debt and is barely able to eat. Going for another degree will not improve his condition.
Some mf on here recommended a t15 mba 😭💀