Careers in Business for Business Graduates

While the economy has slowed in recent years there are still a large number of career opportunities for professionals with ungraduate and graduate degrees in business. The following is list of common business graduate careers.

Accounting
Consulting
Commercial Banking
Corporate Finance
Financial Planning
Insurance
Investment Banking
Money Management
Real Estate

Accounting Career

Accounting is the study of how businesses track their income and assets over time. Accountants engage in a wide variety of activities besides preparing financial statements and recording business transactions including computing costs and efficiency gains from new technologies, participating in strategies for mergers and acquisitions, quality management, developing and using information systems to track financial performance, tax strategy, and health care benefits management.

There's a lot to get out of a career in accounting. Perhaps most important: You will learn how business works. The field of accounting offers stimulating and challenging work that is constantly evolving. Because accountants spend a lot of time looking under the hoods of businesses they really learn how business works. It's no surprise that many successful players in business began their careers as accountants. It's also no surprise that most Chief Financial Officers of large corporations have a background in accounting. An accountant is perfectly positioned to become a CFO because he or she probably has the best understanding of what drives business and profits in a company.

To begin your career, you are most likely to start at a public accounting firm such as Ernst & Young or PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Most people do not make partner at public accounting firms but the experience and training can be excellent. From there, many move on to careers with an accounting focus in business or government.

Consulting Career

The essence of management consulting is to help a client obtain information and advice which leads to real and lasting solution of a problem.

Consultants think, analyze, brainstorm, cajole and challenge good organizations to become even better by adopting new ideas.

Great consultants are able to step into ambiguous, sometimes hostile situations and sense what changes need to be made. Great consultants are driven by ideas and a strong desire to have a positive impact on clients.

This web site is designed to help you become a great consultant by presenting key information needed to enter the field including an overview of the industry, descriptions of firms and common practice areas, comparisons to other career possibilities, interviewing practice and advice and a discussion of some of the powerful ideas consultants are using to reshape organizations.

Commercial Banking Career

Commercial banks are in the business of providing banking services to individuals, small businesses and large organizations. While the banking sector has been consolidating, it is worth noting that far more people are employed in the commercial banking sector than any other part of the financial services industry. Jobs in banking can be exciting and offer excellent opportunities to learn about business, interact with people and build up a clientele.

Today's commercial banks are more diverse than ever. You'll find a tremendous range of opportunities in commercial banking, starting at the branch level where you might start out as a teller to a wide variety of other services such as leasing, credit card banking, international finance and trade credit.

If you are well-prepared and enthusiastic about entering the field, you are likely to find a wide variety of opportunities open to you. Carefully, read through the material below as you decide whether you've got what it takes to pursue a career in commercial banking.

Corporate Finance Career

A career in corporate finance means you would work for a company to help it find money to run the business, grow the business, make acquistions, plan for it's financial future and manage any cash on hand. You might work for a large multinational company or a smaller player with high growth prospects. Responsibility can come fast and your problem-solving skills will get put to work quickly in corporate finance.

The job of the financial officer is to create value for a company. For example, the finance group at American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio has four main areas of concentration: liquidity, flexibility, compliance with laws and regulatory support. The goals of the objective are met through four main activities carried out by AEP's Finance Department: 1) designing, implementing and monitoring financial policies, 2) planning and executing the financing program, 3) managing cash resources, and 4) interfacing with the financial community and investors.

Jobs in corporate finance are also relatively stable while performance in these jobs count. But it's not like your job is going to depend on whether you're selling enough this week or getting good deals finished this quarter. Rather the key to performing well in corporate finance is to work with a long view of what going to make your company successful. Many would argue that corporate finance jobs are the most desirable in the entire field of finance.

Financial Planning Career

Financial planners help individuals plan their financial futures. How are you going to cover your retirement needs? What do you have to do today to put your children through college? This work can be personally and financially rewarding and requires excellent interpersonal skills. A good financial planner understands investments, taxes, estate planning issues and knows how to listen. This work can be done within a company such as IDS Financial Services or by yourself, as a sole proprietorship. Most planners go solo or work within smaller practices. It's essential then that you have a certain amount of entrepreneurship given that you will be running your own business. The work pays well and is rewarding if you like to help people. Increasingly, it pays to obtain the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.

Insurance Career

Did you know that some of the hottest jobs in finance aren't on Wall Street at all? These are jobs in insurance. Insurance is a trillion dollar business that employs more than 2.5 million people in the United States alone. As the population ages and wealth grows, the demand for insurance professionals will increase dramatically. This is great news for you if your thinking of going in to insurance. Jobs in insurance involve helping individuals and business manage risk to protect themselves from catastrophic losses and to anticipate potential risk problems. Work in this area is not only personally rewarding, but can be financially rewarding as well. You will help clients understand their insurance needs, explain their options to them and hopefully help them purchase appropriate insurance policies. You could work in a variety of areas in insurance including as an underwriter, a sales representative, an asset manager, a customer service rep or an actuary. A theme that is constantly emphasized by insurance professionals is that the industry is ultimately about helping people when they need it the most. The stereotype of a slick, sleazy, fast-talking insurance salesman is largely a figment of the past.

Investment Banking Career

Investment Banks help companies and governments issue securities, help investors purchase securities, manage financial assets, trade securities and provide financial advice. The leading investment banks including Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Goldman Sachs are said to be in the bulge bracket.

Other investment banks are regionally oriented or situated in the middle market (e.g. Piper Jaffray). Others are small, specialized firms called boutiques which might be oriented toward bond-trading, M&A advisory, technical analysis or program trading. Firms have lots of different areas and groups within them. In most firms, there is sales and trading which works with owners of securities, investment banking which works with issuers of securities (firms and governments) and capital markets which goes in between the other two. To get an idea of how a firm is organized, check out the products and services groups at Goldman Sachs.

Money Management Career

Do you like to look behind the numbers? Do you like to analyze market trends? Do you get an adrenaline rush when a stock takes off? If so, then money management may be the career for you. Money managers hold stocks and bonds for institutional clients and are on the buy side of Wall Street. Some money managers use the latest sophisticated quantitative techniques while others do very well using simple intuition.

Each money manager has their own unique style. The key to being successful is to have discipline, be broad-minded and be willing to admit defeat if an investment goes against you. Many money managers buy and hold fixed income securities including mortgaged-backs, corporate bonds, munis, agency securities and asset-backed securities. Others focus on equities, including small stocks, large caps and emerging market stocks.

Unfortunately, it is hard to get started in money management. It is particularly hard to start working for the best money managers or a top mutual fund. Good places to start are in bank trust departments, state and local pension funds and in insurance companies. Many people cross over into money management after getting years of experience on the sell side of the business in investment banks. Perhaps one of the best ways to break in is on the marketing side.

If you have the social skills and intelligence required to market money management services, there will be many companies interested in hiring you. To get started today, be sure to study portfolio theory, learn fixed income investments, take the CFA exam and, above all, learn the industry. And then, with a little luck, you will enjoy one of the most personally rewarding careers in the world of business: Money Management.

Real Estate Career

As you read this, there are more than five million people in the United States employed in identifiable real estate fields such as title insurance, construction, mortgage banking, property management, real estate appraisals, brokerage and leasing, and real estate development. In addition, many were engaged in corporate real estate and in real estate lending in commercial banks, savings and loans, and insurance companies where their jobs are not included in the real estate sector. Over a third of the world's wealth is tied up in real estate. Real estate is collateral for mortgages and a large amount of financial assets. As important as the field of real estate might be, it is also worth recognizing how interesting the work in this field is. Real estate professionals are tied to the development of our society in a very direct way and participate in decisions that will shape the way we live for centuries. Work in real estate is personally rewarding, ever-changing and challenging. Take some time and consider your potential in the field of real estate.

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