The Career Path of a Financial Manager

The job title “financial manager” covers a wide range of people who work in various capacities in private industry and understanding the career path of a financial manager will help you get on the right track to a successful career in financial management. Financial manager refers to people whose job duties include overseeing the development of financial reports, guiding budget-related decisions, and making investment choices for a firm. Though the road to becoming a financial manager is not uniform, there are some consistencies along the way. After getting the appropriate education, would-be financial managers will need to accept entry-level financial services jobs and work their way up through experience, additional education, and certification.

Education

A financial manager’s career path begins as an undergraduate. People who think they would enjoy financial management often will gravitate toward business degrees. Rather than simply getting a generic “business management” degree, which teaches the mechanics of running a business, aspiring financial managers should seek out degrees in more specialized business fields, including accounting, finance, and economics. These degrees will prepare the student for entry-level jobs in private firms.

Though future financial managers can get jobs with a bachelor’s degree, most of them will need a master’s degree to move forward in the field. An MBA, or Master of Business Administration, is typical of the graduate degree that a financial manager will seek although master’s degrees in accounting and finance can work as well.

Internships

Internships or co-operative employment opportunities offer a way to gain experience and references in the finance field. Most colleges and universities have working relationships with local businesses to place students in internship and co-op positions. Students who wish to work in these positions should begin to ask about them at the beginning of their sophomore year of college. While internships typically are unpaid, co-ops are paid positions.

Entry-Level Jobs

A number of industries hire people in entry-level financial management jobs. Accounting firms, banks, and corporations are some of the places where future financial managers may go. The job duties for these entry-level jobs will be portions of the full job of the financial manager. For example, financial managers oversee the budgets of their organizations. The personnel side of this supervision is checking the salary package of employees against the value of the employee. In an entry-level position, the financial services employee may work to create salary charts or to create spreadsheets of this information.

Cash or Branch Managers

Cash managers are a common steppingstone position for people in financial management. In this position, the employee will evaluate the firm’s investments. While this person will not be making any decisions regarding investment activity, he or she will be responsible for sharing the appropriate information with people higher in the organizational food chain. The cash manager has a higher level of responsibility than an entry-level financial services employee.

Branches are exceptions to the general rule of education taking priority over experience in the financial sector. Branch managers in banks usually are employees who proved their value to others in the organization. Branch managers have personnel responsibilities and also make decisions to try to get more business for the bank.

Licensure and Certification

Financial management itself does not have a certification process. Instead, people who work as financial managers typically have certifications or licenses in related fields. For financial managers in accounting, for instance, professional certification may be necessary. Accountants become CPAs, Certified Public Accountants, or CFA, Chartered Financial Analysts, to show the depth of their knowledge in their field. Financial managers in securities may gain Series 63 licenses. These certifications show that the person has a specialized knowledge that will benefit the firm.

Promotions

Getting to the point of being a full-fledged financial manager typically will take at least 10 years. The time before that point should provide the training and experience needed to work in this position. Financial managers almost always have office jobs in which they work for usually more than 40 hours a week. Financial managers are responsible for the entirety of the company’s financial health. They work on both income and expenses and help make decisions about stockholders, investments, and other major financial decisions. The financial manager should have the necessary technical knowledge to make these decisions but also needs to have the interpersonal skills to deal with mid-level managers and employees.

Outlook

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job prospects will increase by about eight percent through 2018. The median pay for financial managers in 2008 was $99,330 per year. This number varied widely based on industry with the highest-paid financial managers in the securities industry. In these positions, financial managers make upwards of $130,000 annually while financial managers in local government and the credit industry made below $80,000.