You acquire new skills daily on the job. Exploit them and promote them.
During a recent mentoring session, a friend confessed to feeling a
crisis of self-confidence where her professional skills were concerned.
She had received a few inquiries from recruiters through LinkedIn based
on her profile skills, yet she felt like a fraud. Although she had
acquired a number of skills while working for her current employer, she
didn't believe she could get hired by another firm because she didn't
view herself as a "financial professional."
My friend felt this way because she did not earn a degree in finance, nor did she study finance while in school.
It was surprising for me to hear these concerns from my friend because I
had worked with her professionally for years. In that time I always
thought she was one of the most talented financial professionals I knew.
It's sad to me to think she has put herself in a professional box
because she didn't have a formal education in finance. However, I know
she is not the only one out there who feels like a LinkedIn charlatan.
As someone who did get a degree in finance, and has worked in
the field for 14 years, I can assure you, you do not always need a
degree to be deemed a financial services professional.
I spent years studying accounting and management, yet I frequently laugh
to myself about how very little of it I actually use in my professional
career. The truth is, most of the finance training you need to do your
job, is taught to you while you are working on the job.
There are certainly jobs in the field where the employer may require a
degree in accounting, finance, economics or math. However, there are a
number of entry-level corporate finance or banking jobs that will not
have those restrictions. I even worked with a number of hedge funds who
actually preferred a degree outside of finance because they wanted their
team to "think outside the box" and come up with ideas that other funds
were not using.
Finance is such a diverse field with so many nuances to each job there
is no way a college professor, or even an entire major of study, can
impart that knowledge to students. In fact, I believe the greatest tools
you will have in your arsenal for success in a finance career are
excellent writing skills, good communication skills, and strong people
skills. From my experience, I gained all of these not in my business
school classes, but in my liberal arts classes like English, Psychology
and Public Speaking.
If you have these skills, typically your bosses and mentors can teach
you the ins and outs of a balance sheet, regulatory reporting, or using
an internal system to report profits and losses. For some finance
fields, additional testing and training is required that you could never
take while in school. When I worked as a financial advisor, I had to
take the Series 7 and Series 63 exams to learn more about investments
and federal and state regulations.
I see too many young and talented financial professionals leave
the field because they assume they are not qualified to remain, or do
not have the background to grow and gain even more skills.
They tend to not value the many years of on-the-job training that they
have received, when those skills are far more valuable than any finance
degree.
If you can honestly include a skill on LinkedIn, then you need to have
faith in yourself that you are capable of not only performing that skill
well, but also that others would want to hire you for this skill. Do
not let a lack of self-confidence prohibit you from honestly building
out a LinkedIn profile that will get the attention of financial services
recruiters.
I spent most of my mentoring session encouraging my friend to embrace
the skills she has acquired and accept reality. While she did not plan
on a career in finance, she is actually capable of having a very
successful career in this field. After accepting this feedback, she
agreed to speak with more recruiters going forward, and in fact she just
recently received a job offer and promotion from another company based
on the skills she listed on LinkedIn.
So don't miss out on great opportunities by selling yourself short
professionally. Remember, you don't always need a finance degree to be a
finance professional. On-the-job training is often more valuable than
any classroom lesson.
No comments:
Post a Comment