November 5, 2024
How To Break Into Finance (for non-Finance majors)
 #Finance

How To Break Into Finance (for non-Finance majors) #Finance


there is an article by cfo.com that looks at the number of sitting CFOs with an engineering background and they found it to be 1,466 CFOs with an engineering background and by looking at the profiles of CFOs they listed here in article the first one is a CFO of a big public company visa and

his uh background is from the Indian Institute of Technology with an undergrad degree in engineering the second one um also a chief and his background is in engineering here you can see bachelor’s engineering the third same way a Chief Financial Officer uh with a degree in electrical

engineering so what does these numbers and career profiles here tell us about the conventional story that we all heard since we graduated University which is to reach the top of the hierarchy as a text-decoration: none;">Finance professional you need to have started out in Investment Banking Equity research or Accounting or some other text-decoration: none;">Finance related uh career this here tells us a slightly different story which is that you could have started in engineering data Science Education or some other career which will add some Dimensions to your experience because as an engineer you need to learn how to

conceptualize uh problems and find solutions for them right so adds Dimension to your background and then slowly segue into a Finance related career if that’s what you

like and so in this CashNews.co we’ll talk about the three Horsemen or the three things that I’ve seen who work for my colleagues who transitioned from non-none;">Finance into a Finance career so that’s what we’re discussing here today let’s go all right so the three Horsemen of your strategy for

transitioning from non-Finance into a Finance

career are going to be one work experience two resume and three your post-graduate education or certification and I ask that throughout the CashNews.co if you like the content to go ahead and hit the like button because that’s how you’re going to help me out in return for me helping you

out with these tips here so let’s talk about the first one which is your work experience all right so with work experience what I’m suggesting here is that you’re going to be slowly overtime transitioning from what you’re doing in your core job into a

href="https://cashnews.co/finance" style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance like or Finance related activity within your job so let’s take

an example here just to drive this home a little bit more let’s say you’re an engineer working on a project like building a bridge right so typically what that would entail is uh creating the initial drawings for the bridge um making a plan for uh buying the material and hiring the

labor necessary for for it and then generally just project managing the building process of that bridge right uh what I’m suggesting here is that you’re going to find Finance

related activity within the project like creating a budget for example so the two areas that are going to be Finance related in that project uh could be Budgeting or

procurement right so we’re Budgeting you going to get closer to the Financial Statements of building the project um whether there’s going to be uh some sort of Income uh from collecting tolls from writers who go into that bridge and

then the expense or the cost which is the morti cost of building that bridge over time right so you’re going to get get into the the process of creating the budget for building the bridge which is going to include the cost of labor cost of material and how that’s going to uh be recouped

over time either through Revenue or either through some kind of federal or government grants over time so the Budgeting process is is going to be very helpful for you in this case the second uh option is going to be procurement um or the process of buying things

necessary for that bridge and that’s going to entailed negotiating contracts finding the best pricing and working in general with the team on um optimizing the cost for the things that you’re buying for that bridge so now you’re an engineer working on that bridge but at the same

time you’re working on a Finance related activity that’s going to help you segue yourself into working in

style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance in the future all right so that’s your first Horseman and your strategy to transition into Finance

which is your work experience and before jumping into your second Horseman which is your resume I wanted to announce that I’m starting an Accounting community on school.com uh a community of accountants and controllers Financial analysts who get together and ask questions and

it’s going to be moderated by me so you can ask me questions uh your questions can be either answered by me or by someone else in the community so I’m really excited about it it’s a free community so you can join at no cost I’m going to leave a link down below to joining my

community and I hope to see you in there all right so with your resume or your second horseman in this case what we’re talking about here is that with the first point we talked about is work experience is that you transition slowly to work on budget or procurement on the project and that

applies not only to Engineers but it could be applied to education computer science anything or any career generally includes projects that need to be managed and includes budget and buying things right so that’s uh your work experience now with the resume there are two things here to that we

can work on to make sure that we can transition successfully into Finance the first one is that you need to do enough of Budgeting or procurement uh to be able to put it in

your resume and generally be able to talk about it in a job interview right that’s the first thing and the second is that slowly over time uh these things that relate to Budgeting or Forecasting procurement are going to make up 50% or more of what you do so

slowly when you look at your work experience on your resume in that particular job 50% or half of what you do there is going to be Finance related right the more the better right so we can

show your knack for Finance and your ability to tackle Finance

related projects all right gang so we covered work experience we covered resume and now we’re going to talk about your third Horseman of this strategy which is going to be your post graduate education so most likely now that you’re working in your domain engineering Computer Science

Education you have an undergrad degree in that domain uh what I’m suggesting here is that you invest two years of your life I know it’s not a small invest investment two years of your life um getting a an MBA degree and MBA is Masters in Business Administration uh which could be done

online there are programs that are online uh combined maybe with going on campus for a few times for projects testing and things like that um these MBA programs come in various concentrations uh so they could be in marketing leadership business management Accounting

href="https://cashnews.co/finance" style="font-weight: bold; color: #1a73e8; text-decoration: none;">Finance the ones that we are talking about here and focused on are going to be in none;">Finance corporate Finance or Accounting right it’s an investment in your career not a small one two years and possibly 50 Grand but it is an

investment in your career and ultimately it’s going to make a huge difference if you want to transition into Finance as a second option if you don’t want to invest two years of

your life doing this right there is a CMA designation so you can uh apply and sit for an examination for CMA or Certified Management accountant um which is going to be nice it’s going to be uh you learn through it it’s going to go next to your name and your LinkedIn profile and

it’s going to add value to your career as you transition into Finance so these are the to recap the three Horsemen of your strategy are going to be work experience to transition slowly

overtime taking over Finance related stuff in the project within your work uh second is resume build up what you do slowly over time to maybe get to 50% of what you do in your job

that’s going to be Finance sounding at least or Finance related and then the

third Horseman is going to be post-graduate education um taking an MBA program as an option one or if if not maybe a CMA designation so that’s been the topic of this CashNews.co today I hope that you liked it it added value to you if it did Smash that like button subscribe to the channel and

I don’t know if you know somebody who is interested and maybe wanted to make a move send this CashNews.co along at way and I’ll see you in the next one

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14 thoughts on “How To Break Into Finance (for non-Finance majors) #Finance

  1. As a non-finance / non business major undergrad who is a financial analyst now, I’m having trouble making the next leap forward past senior analyst.

    I’m wondering why you’re recommending CMA over CFA, any insights?

  2. As a finance major in LA, it’s damn near impossible to find a job. Applied to many internships no call ups. Asking family members got no help. Walked into firm asking for positions no opportunities. Like damn how we suppose to survive I’m lost for words.

  3. Thank you for the great video. I am currently in my senior year for a BS Accounting with a 3.98 GPA and have 13 years in the military. I’ve been looking for ways to help make the transition.

    I don’t see the link for your community. Highly interested in joining. Did I miss the link?

  4. I'm from an Engineering background and currently working as a data scientist. I would like switch over to strategic finance. Would a CPA (Canada) with a finance specialization rather than public accounting help me?

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