How to Become a Financial Analyst

banner-financial-accounting

Table of Contents

1. Overview: Job Description, Duties, Salary, and Common Requirements

2. A Comprehensive Guide to Becoming a How to become a Financial Analyst

3. What Does a How to become a Financial Analyst Do?

4. Signs You Should Consider Becoming a How to become a Financial Analyst

5. How Do You Become a How to become a Financial Analyst ?

6. How to become a Financial Analyst : Skills and Qualifications

7. Popular Schools and Colleges in the U.S. for Aspiring How to become a Financial Analyst

8. How to Get a Job as a How to become a Financial Analyst

9. Learn About Geographic and Location Pay Differentials

10. Make Your Resume Stand Out

11. Ace Your How to become a Financial Analyst Interview

12. Top Online Courses for Aspiring How to become a Financial Analyst

Overview

Job Description and Duties of How to become a Financial Analyst

  • Perform financial forecasting and projection to identify financial status
  • Evaluate current and past financial data
  • Recommend investments by studying and interpreting data to create financial models
  • Improve recommendations by analyzing previous financial outcomes and identifying new trends
  • Maintain confidentiality and safety of database and other financial information
  • Study the latest economic and business trends
  • Determine the value of a company by examining its financial statement and results of plans and forecasts
  • Establish policies and procedures to guide the cost analysis process
  • Prepare reports for upper management and executives

How Much Does a How to become a Financial Analyst Make?

How to become a Financial Analyst made a median salary of $47,230 in 2019. The best-paid 10 percent earned $81,590 that year, while the lowest-paid 10 percent earned $156,150.

financial-analyst-bell-graph

Common Requirements

  • Bachelor’s degree, preferably in Business, Finance, Economics, or Accounting
  • Knowledge of spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel 
  • Strong analytical skills
  • Familiarity with concepts of U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
  • Strong knowledge of finance policies, practices, and systems
  • Experience in budgeting and forecasting, financial modeling, and financial budgeting and forecasting, financial modeling, and financial planning

Similar Careers

Budget Analysts

Financial Managers

Insurance Underwriters

Personal Financial Advisors

Financial Advisor

Financial Auditor

Accountant

Financial Services Sales Agents

Investment Banking Analyst

Economists

Common Skills

Asset management

Statistical analysis

Financial modeling

Mathematics

Budgeting

Accounting

Cost accounting

Trend analysis

Oracle financial software

Financial software applications

IFRS

GAAP

SQL

SAP

MEDIAN SALARY

$81,590 per year
$39.22 per hour

JOB OUTLOOK

5%

NUMBER OF JOBS

487,800

A Comprehensive Guide to Becoming a How to become a Financial Analyst

If you have an interest in business, accountancy, economics, and math, and want a lucrative career, then you might want to consider becoming a financial analyst.

Financial analysts are essential in businesses because they determine the overall financial health of a business by using accounting tools to analyze, project, and forecast the business’ financial future. 

The financial service industry is a competitive field. People who are more likely to become successful as financial analysts are those who are team players, dedicated to their jobs, and quick thinkers. Read further and be guided on how you can prepare yourself to break into this field.

What Does a How to become a Financial Analyst Do?

Financial analysts provide guidance to individuals or businesses by giving advice on how to make financial decisions. They usually come up with an analysis that deals with investments by collecting data, organizing information, and analyzing financial statements and market trends. Once these steps have been done, they can’t start making a financial forecast and projection to provide the best business recommendations. 

Basically, there are two types of financial analysts: buy-side and sell-side.

1. Buy-side financial analysts

Buy-side financial analysts help their clients make decisions on where they are going to spend or invest their money. They usually work for institutional investors such as insurance companiescommercial bankshedge fundsendowment fundsmutual funds, and pension funds.

2. Sell-side financial analysts

Sell-side financial analysts evaluate and compare the quality of securities of an institution for future earnings. They provide reports with recommendations of “buy,” “sell,” “strong buy,” “strong sell,” or “hold” to help businesses decide whether they will buy stocks. Sell-side financial analysts usually work for a brokerage firm. They often use tools such as Alpha Spread for accurate stock intrinsic value assessment to help determine the true value of a stock and make informed recommendations.

Duties of How to become a Financial Analyst

The following are some of the aspects of a financial analyst’s job responsibilities:

  • Perform financial forecasting and projection to identify the financial status
  • Evaluate current and past financial data
  • Recommend investments by studying and interpreting data to create financial models
  • Improve recommendations by analyzing past financial outcomes and identifying new trends
  • Maintain confidentiality and safety of database and other financial information
  • Study the latest economic and business trends
  • Determine the value of a company by examining its financial statement and results of plans and forecasts
  • Establish policies and procedures to guide the cost analysis process
  • Prepare reports for upper management and executives

Signs You Should Consider Becoming a How to become a Financial Analyst

Do you like solving problems in a creative way? Are you interested in helping businesses to grow their profit? Are you fascinated with math, statistics, business, and the latest market trends? If you have the drive and ambition, you can be in whatever career you want to be. But some innate traits and characteristics make a person succeed in a chosen field.

If the traits below resonate with you, then you might want to consider a career as a financial analyst.

You think like an entrepreneur 

You always seek opportunities to make things better not only for yourself but for others as welleven if you have to be a risk-taker and invest resources and time in vague ideas. When you are a financial analyst, you think of ways on how to increase the profitability of a business and grow market share. This is by being creative to come up with innovative ideas using unconventional approaches and tools to challenges.

You are a tech-savvy 

You have a strong desire to understand and learn the latest technology as much as possible. Technology has become a necessity in the financial service industry because it allows financial analysts to perform their responsibilities more accurately and timely, such as developing reports. It also allows them to access a broader range of data to conduct a thorough analysis. 

You are good with people 

You find it easy to talk to other people. You are good at presenting your ideas and communicating your thoughts clearly with them. As a result, you are able to influence, motivate, and even sell to people. Financial analysts’ job includes making recommendations to clients and having people skills and good communication skills can help their clients easily understand what you are presenting to them.

You understand how people think 

You have an intuition of how people think and you read their minds. Your friends usually seek for your advice on decisions or challenges that many don’t understand right away. This is because you have a special trait of seeing through their eyes on what they genuinely want to say. The reason why you have this ability is that you are able to interpret a person’s verbal and non-verbal cues.

You are a detailed-oriented person

You have an eagle eye for spotting misspelled words, wrong punctuation, and even the smallest details cannot escape your eyes. You can’t help to be rigorous because it is part of who you are. Financial analysts have strong attention to details, especially that they must be mindful of the possible implications of a small issue in a business.

financial-analyst-discussing-the-charts-and-graph

How Do You Become a How to become a Financial Analyst ?

There are different routes an aspiring financial analyst can take towards building a career. Here are the necessary steps to help you prepare for the job.

1. Earn a bachelor’s degree  

Although not necessarily a prerequisite, most financial analysts pursue a major in finance, business administration, statistics, accounting, and economics as these majors can be helpful in preparing you for the financial analyst career. Other majors that you can pursue are math-heavy fields such as engineering, physics, and also biology—if you opt to work as a financial analyst in these fields.

2. Pursue a financial analyst internship  

It is not compulsory to pursue a financial analyst internship. However, this step has a huge factor in boosting your opportunity of nailing a jobespecially in big corporations. 

Most employers are most likely to hire people with experience. Even if you are applying for an entry-level job, your internship demonstrates how deeply interested you are in this career. Internships will help you understand what it would be like working as a financial analyst in the real work setting. You will also gain knowledge and build experience. It is a chance for you to build your network with other financial analysts and even find a mentor. Lastly, the business where you had your internship might even absorb you if they see that you have the potential to be an asset to their company.

3. Get certified

Obtaining a professional finance certification will help you advance in your career by earning more knowledge and even a reputation in the finance industry. You can acquire certification as a Chartered How to become a Financial Analyst (CFA), the most prestigious title a financial analyst can obtain. The CFA institute administers this certification.

4. Earn licensure  

Financial analysts who work for firms at the sell-side are required to have one or more licenses through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. There are different kinds of licenses that require certain services for a financial analyst to perform their services in areas such as legal advising or selling stocks, bonds, or insurance. The license is usually obtained during employment and is sponsored by the employer. It also needs to be renewed when you change employers.

How to become a Financial Analyst : Skills and Qualifications

Becoming a financial analyst requires different kinds of skills. But what are the essential skills to excel in this field? Here are the top skills of a financial advisor that employer values:

Microsoft Excel

It is important for financial analysts to have a strong grasp of knowledge and skills in Excel. Although it is hard to master all the features of Excel, understanding its primary functions can help perform most of your tasks as a financial analyst. Some of the Excel’s features that you must master are data formatting and manipulation, pivot tables, lookup and valuation equations, charts, and visualization.

Excel can also help financial analysts run capital budgeting analysis, risk analysis, discount cash flows, amortization, taxes, and produce fundamental accounting ratios. Learn more important functions of Excel with Microsoft Excel Master Class online course.

Budget Management

According to Investopedia, “A budget is an estimation of revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time and is usually compiled and re-evaluated on a periodic basis.” In a business, budgeting helps with the managing of the cash flow by allocating the resources in an effective way to different departments. Having skills in budget management helps financial analysts to project cash flow accurately and forecast the profits and expenses on a short-term or long-term basis.

Financial Modeling

Financial modeling is the forecasting of a business’s financial performance with the help of a spreadsheet tool such as Excel. The forecast is based on the past performance of a business and plans for the future. Thus, the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement are required to come up with financial modeling. 

Financial Planning

Individuals or businesses need financial planning to help them determine and meet their short-term and long-term goals. This is a comprehensive statement with strategic steps on how you will achieve your targets. It usually involves:

  • Evaluating the business situation
  • Establishing the vision and objectives of a business
  • Identifying what will be needed to achieve the objectives
  • Planning the resources: quantity, costs, and budget
  • Fixing possible risks and issues

Financial Statements

These are the formal records of a business’s transactions or financial activities and will also determine the financial performance of a business. They include reports such as balance sheets, income or profit statements, loss statements, and cash flow statements. The financial statement is important in a business because it helps the owner understand the overall health of the business and make strategic decisions in growing the business. 

Finding the right school to get the quality of education you want can be hard, especially if there are hundreds of schools to choose from. You can consider the following best undergraduate finance programs if you want to consider a career as a finance analyst:

  • University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA
  • New York University | New York, NY
  • University of Michigan–Ann Arbor | Ann Arbor, MI
  • University of Texas—Austin | Austin, TX
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, MA
  • University of California—Berkeley | Berkeley, CA
  • Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, PA
  • University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill | Chapel Hill, NC
  • Indiana University—Bloomington | Bloomington, IN
  • Ohio State University—Columbus | Columbus, OH
  • Boston College | Chestnut Hill, MA
  • University of Virginia | Charlottesville, VA
financial-analyst-lady-holding-the earphone-microphone-looking-at-the-chart-in-the-computer-screen

How to Get a Job as a How to become a Financial Analyst

Whether you are an experienced professional or not, finding a job is a tedious task. Here are some strategies that you can use to find a job faster.

Build your own networking

If you want to become a financial analyst faster, networking is the easiest way of finding a job in the industry. Start asking for open job positions from people you know. It is easier if you will have your internship because there are many experienced financial analysts that you will meet along the way that might introduce you to other companies and other financial analysts. You can also create a Linkedin account to connect with people in the same industry.  

Find jobs online

The easiest and cheapest way to find a job is through job search engine websites. Here are some top job search engine websites that you can try.

Apply directly to the Companies

Create a list of the companies you want to work for. Take advantage of the Internet and find the websites of those companies and get as much information. Once you created a list, you can directly apply to them via email or through their “Career” page. You can also sign up for their email list to get email notification of their job openings. 

Learn About Geographic and Location Pay Differentials

Geographic areas often have location pay differentials, making a significant impact on your potential earnings. Some states offer a higher salary and some with a lower wage to financial advisors. 

Here’s a list of the average annual revenues of financial analysts in every state according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics dated 2019:

Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Make Your Resume Stand Out

If you want to leave a good impression on your potential employer, then your resume should be well-thought of and skillfully constructed. By doing this, the chances of securing a job interview are much higher. Follow these tips in creating your resume.

1. Write a compelling summary

Setting the right tone at the opening section of the resume by writing a compelling summary will keep your prospective employer interested to keep on reading and learn about you more. Your introduction statement should be short but catchy as to why you will be a valuable asset to the company.

2. List your roles and achievements from the most to least important

Employers receive a lot of applications daily, and they don’t entirely read all the resumes they are receiving. They actually skim all of the resumes and get back to those resumes that got their attention. With that being said, it is important that you emphasize your top or most valuable skills and accomplishments in every section to catch the eyes of the employer.

3. Use keywords

Another tool that employers use to help them find the right applicant for a job is the applicant tracking systems (ATS). It is an automated tool that filters all the applications. Using and inserting the right keywords in the cover letter and resume will help the applicant tracking system pick your resume. You can find these keywords in the job responsibilities section and the required skills in the job posting. Here are some samples of keywords that are applicable for the financial analyst position:

  • Analysis
  • Asset
  • CFA
  • Client
  • Compliance
  • Equity
  • Excel
  • Financial
  • Insurance
  • Investment
  • Licenses
  • Management
  • Models
  • Performance
  • Portfolio
  • Recommendations
  • Reports
  • Research
  • Review
  • Valuation

4. Proofread before sending

You need to ensure that your cover letter resume is free from grammatical errors. These errors might cost you your job interview. Here are some tips on how to proofread your resume effectively: 

  • Read your resume slowly to spot errors
  • Use spell checker tools
  • Use a dictionary as you write
  • Check if you used the right punctuations
  • Read your resume backward, sentence by sentence
  • Have someone proofread your cover letter and resume

Ace Your How to become a Financial Analyst Interview

A job interview is probably the most crucial part of an application. Your answers to the interview questions will make or break your moment nailing the job. Even if you are qualified enough for the position, if you failed to answer a question in an interview, you may lose the chance of getting the job. That is why you should really prepare. Here are some tips on how you can pass the common interview questions for a financial analyst position.

1. Why do you want to be a financial analyst? 

This is one of the most common questions in an interview. The employer wants to know how appealing the job of a financial analyst is to you. Answer this question honestly and enthusiastically. 

2. Where do you see yourself in five years? 

Many see this as a trick question because there are a lot of unforeseen things that could happen to you within five years. As a result, you might answer this question vaguely or too ambitious. The interviewer wants to know if you have a career goal and how the position you are applying for fits in your goal. 

3. Why do you want to work here? 

The interviewer wants to hear two answers to this question. One, what interested you to work for their company? And two, why are you interested in the job position? By answering these questions, the interviewer will be able to determine what motivates you for applying for the job and if you are going to stay for a while. Here are some tips on how you can craft an answer:

  • Find out the mission and vision of the company if they align with yours.
  • Be sincerely interested in the job as a financial analyst.
  • Do background checks about the company, what they do, the industry, the position
  • Reflect on your priorities and the aspects of the company that appeals to you the most. 

4. Tell me how you work under the pressure of deadlines? 

Sometimes, financial analysts will have to deliver reports on a tight deadline. The interviewer wants to know how you perform under pressure if you would fold or thrive. In answering this question, you must convince the employer that you can get the job done under pressure. You can use the STAR method in answering this question, which stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. This method will give your interviewer concrete example that you have the skills and experience for the job.

5. Describe the process you do on your financial analysis reporting. 

Creating reports is an important part of a financial analyst’s job because this is the material an employer will be using to make decisions to help their business grow. You must demonstrate your knowledge and skills in financial analysis reporting methods, techniques, and tools that you are using.

Top Online Courses for Aspiring How to become a Financial Analyst

Sharpen your skills in financial analysis by taking these top online courses

Skills Success has carefully curated and organized thousands of online video courses. Start your journey to becoming a financial advisor with these top online courses.

Customer Reviews

Melodie Johnson
Melodie Johnson
Read More
Course: The Infinite Banking Concept: Privatize Finance

"Good information! This course was interesting and the theory behind it seems sound. I just wish I had children or grandchildren to try it on. I found it worth watching! The instructor stayed on topic and seemed to cover all the relevant bases."
Beatrice Cartagena
Beatrice Cartagena
Read More
Course: Personal Finance For Beginners: Ultimate Guide To Mastering Your Finances

"It was very informative and easy to understand. Thanks a lot"
Shinta Setiawati
Shinta Setiawati
Read More
Course: Personal Finance For Beginners: Ultimate Guide To Mastering Your Finances

"It's easy to follow, but some other topics are not. But, most of the materials are easy and can be applied to the real situation."
TripleMRocks
TripleMRocks
Read More
Course: Personal Finance: Master Your Finances In 30 days

"I really enjoyed this course as it opened my eyes as well as doors of opportunity. The history of money was most beneficial in building that first step toward financial freedom."
Sabreena
Sabreena
Read More
Course: The Passive Investing Blueprint: Build Wealth Passively

"Very Informative. The resources provided are really helpful."
Sherri
Sherri
Read More
Course: The Passive Investing Blueprint: Build Wealth Passively

"This course is a great overview of different types of investments and how to structure your passive portfolio."
Gloria Black
Gloria Black
Read More
Course: Personal Finance For Beginners: Ultimate Guide To Mastering Your Finances

"This was my first course on this site, and I thought it was a great one to start with. I wish I had this information before I moved out into my own place. Highly recommend."
Keymarin Washington
Keymarin Washington
Read More
Course: Personal Finance: Master Your Finances In 30 days

"Great course, very understandable and knowledge filled. Can't wait to put what was learned into action!"
Previous
Next

Looking for a solution to discover,
change, or advance your career?

Get All Access Pass for only $15/Month and unlock 4,000+ online video courses today.

You've successfully signed up for our newsletter!

Look out for useful articles and resources delivered straight to your inbox.

Your privacy is secured and your information will not be shared

SKILLSUCCESS.com 2024
All rights reserved

Get free articles weekly and put your skills on turbo mode. Subscribe with your email today.

You've successfully signed up for our newsletter!

Look out for useful articles and resources delivered straight to your inbox.

14083

Join our newsletter and get your first course free!

14084

Join our newsletter and get your first course free!

Congratulations! You get one free course of your choice. Please check your email now for the redemption code.

Subscribe For Success!

Get fresh content every week to upgrade your skills today!

11866
Close