Can anyone in finance help?

[bernadettie]

DP has gone through an awful situation and is starting completely fresh and part of this is looking for a new career. I really appreciate your time and help.

He has a degree in business with finance and for the last 6 years ran an e-commerce business as a manager where he did everything sometimes by himself sometimes with staff including: finance/operations/HR/ marketing and sales. He has never had a corporate job but is interested in finance but isn't too sure about all the options.

Other than his degree does not have finance/accounting qualifications but is interested in finance and actively researches and participates in the finance/investing world every day.

Any ideas on where he should start looking at his options/ what qualifications he may need, and what jobs he can get right now with his experience?

Is he a whiz on Excel? That always helps with any career in finance.

yes he is amazing on excel!

I'd recommend doing some training in Microsoft 365/ Power BI. It's still new enough to be a niche skill but it can add 000's to a pay check and really put you ahead of other candidates.

thank you @StevieNicksWannabe - would he need another finance qualification on top of that?

Finance is very broad. He needs to narrow down what part of finance he's interested in first. Accounting is very different to investment banking which is different from an analyst / financial planner / actuary etc.

At the moment he knows accounting isn't for him but with all the others he is interested but wants to know if any don't require a lengthy qualification for him to get a job in the very hear future

In that case I'll bow out because my advice (hence the nickname) would all be accountancy related :)

thank you very much for stopping by neighbour @FriendlyNeighbourhoodAccountant

There are always businesses who think they are doing everything right with marketing, sales and so on, but still don't seem to be profitable. Usually it is down to them getting their costings wrong, and not allowing for overheads when pricing their goods or services. Maybe that sort of thing would interest him? Working out why things aren't going as well as they should be, and advising on the right course of action to put things right.

I think he would really enjoy that, do you know what that would be called and how he could apply for jobs that offer that? @citrinetrilogy

Jumping back in (sorry!) - this is actually a very common part of accountancy within industry. We look at commercial pricing strategies, budgeting and analysis, overhead management etc. Usually it's within a role such as FP&A Accountant or Finance Business Partner (but this usually requires you to be a qualified accountant first). He might not be interested in the day to day accountancy stuff but would be worth him looking at the syllabus for CIMA and seeing if it interests him.

Came to agree with @FriendlyNeighbourhoodAccountant
Most "accounting" roles in industry are finance not accounting, being a business partner, helping with business decisions etc - very varied and interesting. CIMA is a great gateway to these.

Thank you very much this is very interesting. The problem is that he needs a role pretty soon. So while that can be a longer term plan, are there any ways into finance that don't need a qualification, while he works on his qualification on the side or saves up for it?

Nope. Power BI is a software technology that is basically another (niche) feather in your finance cap. I worked in the IT industry as a finance manager for many years and Dynamics365/Power BI is a growing market, with more industries seeing the advantage of having it onboard. It has loads of functions but they key ones I used it for are:

• Elevate presentations with dashboards/visuals
• Access more dynamic reporting
• Improve budgeting and strategy
• Access insightful data

It's still an up-and-coming technology which is why it can put you so far ahead of other candidates for the same role and boost your salary. Give it a few years and it will be just another thing that most graduates have. It will become just another generic skill, like "advanced excel" that you need to have. So, best to get in early and use it to your advantage!

(That's what I see in my crystal ball, anyway!)

Microsoft offers free online training that isn't too immersive but obviously you could pay someone for a full course too.

An entry level accounting role while qualifying would do the trick, but he'd be doing accountancy work rather than the finance business partnering or the more "interesting" stuff until he qualifies/gets more experience. Also will come with a big pay drop compared to what I assume he is on now/used to. Finance Business Partner is usually a sideways/step up from your normal accounting role so not entry level.

Power BI is quite old and clunky. There are now better alternatives, although Microsoft houses still use it extensively.

I would probably go for tableau in preference as it is more widely used.

The difference is speed. Tableau is way faster than Power BI.

@bernadettie the concept of a visualisation tools is a good one. Power BI, Tableau, or one of the myriad of other tools allow data to be queried 'live'. Think about the old days when someone had a spreadsheet and did some static graphs, imagine you could link those graphs into live data so they were always up to date 'automagically' and that is what these tools do. Where the expertise lies is making sure the data is robust and clean. Dirty data is a huge issue for most organisations.

There is a place still for static reports though as, for some purposes, a point in time needs to be compared with previous points in time (think month on month, year on year etc.)

thank you everyone. What sort of salary could he expect for entry level finance roles that are not accounting? Such as financial analyst. Also if he were to learn Power BI or Tableau, what sort of salary do you think he could command?

He is currently on £55k so it will be a hit for the family. We could scrape by on £30k but not much less, and would hope for more.

In my experience for entry level roles I wouldn't expect to be earning 30k unfortunately. Unless you're in London/SE? My financial analysts with no relevant experience start on 22-25k and we pay for their qualification. They move to 30k once qualified and then it's a case of the more experience the more money they earn.

Could your husband look at a graduate scheme as he has a degree? They might pay more?

I would suggest contracting. I have paid anything up to 80k for decent data analysts with database and visualisation tool skills, but obviously this wasn't entry level.

If he were to add database querying (snowflake / oracle etc), then entry level would be 250 to 350 per day.

Just a heads up .... does he have 100% tidy financial history? My SIL thought he had, and nearly lost a job when a search found out that there was an old mark on his file from a water bill that wasn't paid when he was a house-sharing student!

thank you :) yes tidy financial history :) We are not in London or SE. He has considered contracting but is unsure where to find the work as he needs a decent income fairly quickly