Why a financial career is a top choice for students and graduates

A financial career can land you an attractive starting salary. But more than that, it can give you a chance to hone your quantitative and interpersonal skills, gain broad exposure to several types of businesses, and make a tangible impact on communities. 

Choosing a first job is a daunting prospect, especially as technology and automation disrupt virtually every career. But there is one industry that is seen as offering relative stability in a world of accelerating change, perhaps because it is integral to the smooth running and growth of all businesses: finance. 

Respondents to CFA Institute’s 2024 Graduate Outlook Survey identify finance as the most stable and attractive industry by a fair margin, ahead of science, technology, engineering, education and healthcare. Finance also ranks as the industry in which the respondents – university students and recent graduates across 14 key global markets – are most confident about their career prospects.  

As you embark on a career today, it can be intimidating to think that you might expect to work for six decades as retirement ages creep higher. But fret not; longer careers do not have to mean a life of extended drudgery. Today’s technology also makes it easier to switch roles in line with your evolving interests and passions – so long as you are committed to lifelong learning.  

That makes it all the more important that you find a career offering ample opportunity to pick up transferable core skills, explore and grow.  

Finance can tick those boxes. It can provide you “broad exposure across different products and industries,” said Ryan Trainor, who graduated from the Master of Accounting program at the University of Waterloo, Canada. 

“I think finance is a great avenue for you to be able to learn a lot about different businesses and how they operate and how they’re able to create value,” added fellow University of Waterloo Master of Accounting graduate Coco Dai.  

Hard and soft skills

A financial career can be uniquely stimulating, calling on you to hone a combination of quantitative and interpersonal skills, as well as real-world knowledge. Apart from the math needed for valuations and modelling, “the idea of connecting businesses and people to come to an agreement on a transaction or a deal is certainly something that appeals to me,” said Hugo Heanly, a recent graduate with a Bachelor of Finance and Bachelor of Science from the Australian National University. 

Chen Huan Liu, who has been working as an equity analyst at Crescent Capital Partners since graduating with a Bachelor of Actuarial Studies from the Australian National University in 2023, echoed that sentiment. She described finance as “the best of both worlds”, requiring you to bring to bear not only quantitative skills, but also a wide range of knowledge “about the economy, which ties into politics, which ties into a lot of other social factors… It's all very interlinked.” 

Indeed, as several students and recent graduates observe, finance is inextricably linked to the functioning of virtually every other industry and the real economy. It is “interconnected with everything that’s going on in the world,” said Aryaman Dhillon, an investment banking analyst at Agentis Capital who is studying a combination of computing, accounting and finance at University of Waterloo.  

Real-world impact

A financial career can also give you the opportunity to make a real and meaningful impact on communities.  

Alex Pates, who grew up in a rural area in the Philippines, is studying business administration and accounting at University of the Philippines Diliman. She had initially thought of finance as just “money moving around,” but as she learned more about it, she came to realize that finance also “feeds families and grows a small company into a giant conglomerate”. 

And so, while finance is indeed very much about money flowing from one place to another, as an industry it touches everything, keeping the wheels of commerce and communities turning. If you’re looking for a career that will expose you to many sectors and give you the opportunity to develop core skills – all while making a real-world impact – finance could be for you.

Discover more: read the full series

• Overcoming imposter syndrome: Advice from recent finance graduates
• AI in finance: why recent graduates are optimistic about their career prospects
• Breaking into finance: top tips from recent graduates