Employers of these positions will be looking for people with some very specific qualifications. A strong candidate will possess very strong quantitative, analytical, and communications skills. They will be able to work in fast-paced, demanding environments, and they will need to demonstrate achievements such as a high GPA, sophisticated academic and part-time work experiences, and extracurricular leadership positions.
Skills and Requirements Financial analysis and research work is done in a wide variety of contexts by some of the most prestigious firms in the world. Generally what is look editor in applicants, both on their resumes and in personal interviews, is evidence of a facility in mathematics, the ability to digest, analyze, and interpret large amounts of material; an inquiring mind; and good communication skills. To your surprise perhaps, listening is a critical skill. In dealing with clients, if you don't understand their problem as they do, you're wasting your time in devising solutions! Consulting is about communication.
While your background may be in mathematics, you'll be joined by colleagues with degrees in economics, political science, business administration, finance, marketing, engineering, and law. Any of these degrees combined with an advanced degree in business administration is considered very attractive by hiring firms.
Earnings
Salaries in this path vary dramatically, sometimes almost astronomically,depending on the new employees' education, experience, and employer. Comparisons are futile, but we will suggest some boundaries. Median incomes for analysts are about $45,000. The middle 50 percent (according to the most recent edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook) earned between$30,000 and $53,900. In your own search for analysts' salaries, you'll need to be watchful. Frequently on the Web, the term "analyst" will refer to data analyst positions, not the analyst positions.The Association of Management Consulting weighs in with some additional information of note. Their most recent survey of firms indicates higher earnings, and this includes bonuses (very common in these jobs based on profitability) and profit sharing-research associates in member firms averaged $61,277 for entry-level analysts and consultants.
What you need to remember in reading these very generous salary figures is that these firms have their employees under tremendous scrutiny. If you don't perform, you'll be let go. This remains true even as you ascend thee arnings ladder. Many of these firms have very specific expectations for when employees should be achieving certain levels of performance. When you see high earnings such as these, you shouldn't be surprised that the following are true: 1) getting hired will be correspondingly difficult and 2) you will work very hard indeed for that salary.
Career Outlook
The volatile business environment in the nineties has challenged even smaller corporations with issues of global competition, dramatic technological advances, and an endless stream of new thinking and practices for organizational structure. Faced with this kind of dizzying environment, it's no wonder management cries, "Get us an analyst!"
Employment projections for analysts and consultants are for faster-than-average growth through the year 2005 as industry and government increasingly outsource these jobs to improve their performance. Companies to day are more likely to "buy" from among this growing array of specific consulting services to solve problems, rather than hire permanent staff to accomplish the same things. It's cheaper and more efficient. As a result of this outsourcing practice, however, growth is expected to occur in large consulting firms, large financial services organizations, and the largest banks.
In today's competitive marketplace, consultants, banks, and financial service organizations offer many similar services to their clients. Someone maybe in trouble over product development, staffing issues, profit loss projections or any of a host of complicated situations while others are doing well and need assistance coping with rapid growth; still others need help increasing profitability or efficiency. Consulting can be utilized by any business for any aspect of a business's operation.
Strategy For
The career path to a possible master's degree we discuss in this chapter is structured around the strategy of first finding a position as an analyst. These analyst positions go by a variety of names including market and financial analyst, research analyst, and research associate. Though they are not all the same job, they share an interest in hiring the mathematics graduate. For these positions, your math education is as essential as it will be on your way to earning a master's degree in any of the quantitative disciplines. To find both the advertised and unadvertised analyst positions you should begin by identifying your particular skills, locate the jobs, identify the industries, prepare your tools, and begin the networking process.
Identify Your Skills
Locate the analyst positions that match your skills and experience. Let's look at the skills employers are seeking for these positions: an exceptionally strong mathematics background including a high GPA, presentation skills, good oraland written communications, teamwork, good telephone skills, an inquiring mind, research ability for business and market trends, a comfort level with the manipulation, analysis, and interpretation of large amounts of data, and the potential ability to analyze financial market reports. Look for positions that will value your undergraduate degree and positions that offer training or possible benefits for continuing your education.
Many of you reading this ad will not be surprised at the need for strong math skills. After all, that was your major. As career counselors, however, we find most math students are shocked at the emphasis on public presentations,excellence in writing, and client conferencing skills. If you're surprised as well,it's probably because none of your college math classes gave you an experience in these areas, nor did they indicate they would be important in your career. They are, however, very important and will be a strong theme.
Locate the Jobs
As we mentioned earlier, you should explore the concentration of employers which will be found in major metropolitan areas or the highway belts around such areas as Boston, Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco. The kinds of employers that use analysts frequently are concentrated in densely populated areas near transportation and major airports.Let's use Boston as an example and begin our search to locate the jobs, identify the industries, and explore some of the resources that list analyst positions.
Adams Publishing {http:llwww.adamsonline.com)y publishers of The Boston JobBank and similarly named directories of employers for Atlanta, the Carolinas, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Florida, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Missouri, Metropolitan New York, Ohio,Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Tennessee, and Metropolitan Washington. Surrey Books {http://surreybooks.co7n) publishes another geographical guide, How to Get a Job in Greater Boston, and similar titles for Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Europe, Houston, the New York metropolitan area, the Pacific Rim, San Francisco Bay, Seattle/Portland, southern California, and Washington, D.C.
With these publications in mind, in our example
The Boston Job Bank offers an overview of the Boston job market and the basic elements of a successful job search which states, "the direct contact method boasts twice the success rate of the others" when using techniques for a job search. The "direct contact" method centers on picking up the telephone and making calls to the hiring officials on your contact list. You can use a guide like this to begin formulating a list of contacts. In this guide, the employers are organized by industry with address, telephone numbers, a description of the company and the product or service it provides, and a contact name.
