I will briefly introduce all kinds of financial work here, so that our students studying finance and BBA can choose their professional brothers and sisters in the future. Welcome to add. You are also welcome to introduce your work in other fields.

1. Internal financial work of enterprises

Any enterprise with a certain scale will have some financial work. Many people start with financial analysts. The work includes the analysis, summary and report of the company's financial situation, the financial budget and management of projects, departments and enterprises. Excel is the most important tool. Some particularly large enterprises also have jobs similar to those of professional financial institutions. For example, some enterprises manage their own pensions and do the same work as investment management companies. There are also some large enterprises that have their own internal departments responsible for mergers and acquisitions and coordinate with investment banks. One of my classmates worked as the director of investor relations in an enterprise after graduation, who was responsible for communicating with investors about the enterprise and participating in the investment process from another angle. Generally speaking, the pressure of financial work within an enterprise is less than that of working directly in a financial institution. The average weekly working hours may also be shorter. Work is also very interesting. If you want to have enough time to take care of your family and have your own private time while your career is successful, this may be one of the choices worth considering.

2. Commercial banks

The work of commercial banks includes loan management. Commercial banks will lend to an enterprise, and then they need to manage the relationship with this enterprise, recover the principal and interest, and increase new loans. This kind of work needs good numerical ability, analytical reasoning ability and some knowledge of credit analysis from the beginning. After a certain stage of career, the ability to establish interpersonal relationships becomes more and more important. The loan management income is good, the work is stable, and the pressure may not be as great as that of investment banks. Many commercial banks also have many other businesses, such as credit cards and consumer-oriented financial services.

3. Credit card

One of the tasks of the credit card department is to analyze and manage the credit status of credit card applicants or cardholders. Due to the low annual interest rate and other factors in recent years, the credit card business has developed rapidly, and has not been affected by the recent economic recession at all. Together with mortgage and other fields, it has become one of the few industries that recruit more people in the depressed job market. Because applicants or cardholders come from different races and ages, some credit card companies are interested in job seekers of all races, including Chinese, in order to better analyze them.

4. Venture capital

Venture capital invests in growth companies. If you work in a venture capital company after graduating from college or MBA, you may spend a lot of time on the feasibility analysis of the business plan, including reading the plan, collecting and analyzing industry background information, interviewing company management, etc. It may also take time to manage the investments that have been made.

5. Stockbrokers

Mainly refers to the commission broker, that is, the broker who buys and sells stocks for customers and collects commissions. They mainly work for brokerage companies. Some investment banks, like Merrill Lynch, also have brokerage departments. This job requires financial knowledge, but more importantly, sales ability. That is, the ability to build relationships. After establishing a broad customer base, some stockbrokers may spend more time recommending stocks to customers, but most of their time is spent on establishing customer relationships at an early stage.

Sales ability is not just eloquence. One of my sales colleagues at IBM has a good performance. It turns out that he sings karaoke very well, so customers like to go to karaoke with him. After a while, at least they got to know each other first.

As a stockbroker, if your performance is good, you can earn a good income, but you don't need to work long hours a week. But not everyone is suitable for sales. If you don't behave well, you will be under great pressure.

Related to this is the private customer service department of some investment banks. Different companies may have different names. They mainly serve richer customers (such as10 million dollars or more). Besides stocks, they also sell other financial products and services. For this industry, sales ability is still very critical.

6. Stock traders

Stock traders are responsible for buying and selling stocks.

This is also a very distinctive job. On the one hand, this job also needs some stock analysis skills to grasp the trading opportunity. However, unlike stock analysts, stock traders pay more attention to writing out the factors that affect the short-term rise and fall of stocks.

This job needs to face strong pressure and quick response ability.

A stock trader can work in an asset management company (buyer) or the stock analysis department (seller) of an investment bank.

Buyer and seller are commonly used terms in the investment industry. Let me briefly introduce it first.

The asset management company is the buyer. They manage assets directly for customers. Asset management companies can be divided into mutual funds, hedge funds and funds from institutional customers (pension funds, insurance funds, etc.). ).

The seller mainly refers to the stock research department of the investment bank. Some large investment banks may have both asset management departments and stock analysis departments, that is, both buyers and sellers. But these two departments are relatively independent and may not be closely related. )

Sellers don't directly manage assets, they mainly make profits by providing trading services for buyers. In the past, the seller's stock analysts also made profits by waving flags for the M&A activities of their investment banks, but they were greatly criticized in previous years, so their activities in this area were restricted.

Although the seller does not directly manage assets, some of their stock analysts have great influence on the seller, so their opinions can also greatly affect the decline of stock accounts.

Let's go back to the topic of stock traders.

On average, the seller's stock traders are under more pressure than the buyer and may earn more.

Stock traders often need to be highly nervous when they work, because the market is changing rapidly, and each transaction often affects tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

On the other hand, traders did a good job and made a lot of money. A good stock trader can earn as much as an investment banker, but he doesn't need to work that long a week.

7. Stock analysts

Both buyers and sellers need stock analysts, whose job is to analyze the value of stocks and see if they are worth investing. The buyer's stock analysts do not disclose their analysis results to the public, but provide the results to the company's portfolio manager. Some companies also have funds managed by stock analysts themselves (called analyst funds, or similar names) and invest directly according to the research of stock analysts.

As far as career prospects are concerned, some of the buyer's stock analysts have always been stock analysts, and some will be portfolio managers in the future.

The average working hours of the buyer's stock analysts are not very long, and the asset management department of an investment bank is often one of the departments with the shortest working hours per week.

The pressure mainly comes from the fact that if the stocks you recommend always perform poorly, then your recommendation will gradually be rejected.

The daily work of the buyer's stock analyst includes analyzing financial reports, attending investor meetings of the invested company, meeting with the management of the invested company, meeting with the seller's stock analyst, visiting the invested company and analyzing the stock in various ways.

Seller's stock analysts work for the stock analysis departments of investment banks such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Their findings will be communicated to clients in the asset management industry. The person who announces the upgrade or downgrade of the stock rating and the target price of the stock is often the stock analyst of the seller.

The seller's excellent stock analyst can greatly influence the judgment of the public and the buyer on the stock value, so I will also get a high income. A few years ago, the annual salary of some star stock analysts exceeded10 million dollars.

Generally speaking, the seller's stock analysts work longer hours and earn higher average income than the buyer.

Some foreign students from China worked as stock analysts in various asset management companies after graduation in the United States, and most of them managed assets related to Asia.

Sellers' stock analysts have higher requirements for language expression because they often have to deal with American customers and the media. Even fewer people from China work there. In fact, I don't know any overseas students from China who worked as sellers' stock analysts in major investment banks on Wall Street after graduation. Even if there is, the number is very small.

In contrast, there are many foreign students from China in the stock analysis department of China branch of these investment banks.

8. Seller's sales staff

Their main job is to manage the relationship with customers (asset management companies) and let customers buy their trading services. Sales staff will also give some investment suggestions to customers according to the research results of our company. Their job characteristics are somewhat similar to those of stockbrokers. The difference is that stockbrokers serve individual customers, while these salespeople serve institutional customers.

9. Mergers and acquisitions and stock issuance

This is the most important source of income for most investment banks, and it is also a very eye-catching industry. This is a very distinctive work. On the one hand, the work intensity is high. Analysts and assistants working in the largest investment banks work more than 100 hours per week on average. In terms of the average work intensity of the whole industry, I am afraid that only young lawyers from management consulting and major law firms can compare with it. Strictly speaking, the working hours of investment banks are slightly longer than the average working hours of the latter two. On the other hand, income is also very objective. The ability gained in the work and the future prospects are very good, so this industry still attracts a large number of excellent job seekers every year. The ability of numerical analysis is of course very important in job hunting, and so is the ability of language expression and communication. Like many professions, after working in an investment bank for several years, the weekly working hours are gradually shortened, and interpersonal skills are becoming more and more important. In the end, whether you can win a deal for the company has gradually become the most important criterion to measure your performance.

Undergraduate graduates usually work as analysts. In a few years, most analysts will take MBA courses. After obtaining the MBA degree, they will enter the company as assistants. Above them are the vice president and managing director. Unlike industrial enterprises, an investment bank may have more vice presidents.

There are also many people who will leave M&A at various stages to invest in asset management, private capital or commercial banks.

10. Private equity

Private equity purchases part or all of the ownership of an enterprise, or provides funds to the enterprise in some form, and tries to profit from it.

When engaging in these activities, it is necessary to analyze the value of the companies they invest in, so their work is very close to the merger and acquisition department of investment banks. In fact, many people have worked in investment banks before entering the private equity field.

One difference from venture capital is that many private capitals are not inclined to invest in fast-growing enterprises in the development stage. In fact, many private capitals tend to invest in more traditional industries with undervalued value.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is very similar to private equity, and even considered as a special private equity enterprise. One difference between them and asset management companies (funds, etc.) is that. ) The previous introduction is that * * * funds generally only passively hold stocks, while private placement will actively affect the operation of these invested companies and even change the managers of enterprises.

1 1. Portfolio Manager

The job of a portfolio manager is to decide which stocks to invest in. Today, we mainly discuss the work of stock analysis industry. Some portfolio managers are also responsible for investment in other fields, such as bonds and other fixed-income bonds. )

Portfolio managers can manage funds from institutional clients, such as pension funds and insurance funds. They can also manage mutual funds and hedge funds.

The fundamental difference between hedge funds and funds lies in the different applicable laws, so hedge funds have greater autonomy in deciding how to invest, but are subject to more restrictions in absorbing funds. Another major difference is that their income structure is also different.

Generally speaking, the portfolio managers of the best hedge funds earn more than those who have the same fund or institutional clients.

Hedge funds invest in a variety of directions. In addition to the familiar funds targeting the foreign exchange market, there are also hedge funds targeting high-tech stocks, special corporate events and many other fields.

Hedge funds are usually risky. Some of the most famous hedge funds in history have disappeared or recovered after some key misjudgments.

Compared with traditional asset management, hedge funds have developed rapidly in recent years.

In 2003, there were 17 investment managers in American hedge funds, and their personal annual income exceeded 1 billion dollars, of which the highest was 750 million dollars.

In the same year, only one CEO of Fortune 500 (Colgate CEO) earned more than 1 billion dollars. In other words, the income of the investment manager of a successful hedge fund greatly exceeds that of the president of a multinational company.

In fact, except for entrepreneurs in high-tech fields, there is hardly any other business or financial field that can provide opportunities to accumulate a lot of wealth in a very short time compared with investment managers of hedge funds.

There are also some jobs in the financial industry, such as fixed income securities investment, derivative financial instruments investment, model building, housing loans and so on. So I won't introduce them one by one because of time.

I think it should be considered comprehensively according to your own interests, your strengths and your favorite lifestyle. In this way, you can recall the most unforgettable moment in your life and see what is most important to you.

Although income is important, it should never be the only basis for you to choose a career. Life is too short to spend such precious time on things you don't like.

So the Bible says, "Why worry about clothes? How do you think the lilies in the field grow? It neither toils nor rotates; But I tell you, even in the heyday of Solomon, he was not dressed as well as this flower! "