Skip to the content
Compass
AboutWhat can I enter?Sign in

The guide

Close

Money & markets

Business & Economics

Deciding where money should go, and keeping the numbers honest.

This suits you if…

You are disciplined rather than bold, you like defending an assumption in detail, and the long entry-level hours are a trade you are making with your eyes open rather than one you'll find out about in your first month.

Look elsewhere if…

You want to predict markets, or you want protected time outside work. Nights and weekends are the normal expectation in entry-level investment roles, this is one of the first sectors to cut staff in a downturn, and much of the routine analysis is being automated.

What the work actually is

What the work is actually like

Spreadsheets, and the arguments behind them. You build a model of a company or a portfolio, stress it against assumptions you have to defend, and write the memo that recommends something. Accounting and audit work is closer to disciplined verification: tracing what actually happened against what was reported, and documenting it so it holds up to review.

The catch

The hours in the entry-level investment roles are genuinely punishing. Long nights and weekends are the normal expectation, not the exception, and that is the trade being made for the pay. It's also cyclical: this is one of the first sectors to cut staff in a downturn, and much of the routine analytical work is being automated.

What people get wrong about it

That it is about predicting markets. Most of the work is valuation, risk and process: being careful and consistent about what a thing is worth and what could go wrong, and the people who last are the disciplined ones rather than the bold ones.

The jobs inside this area

  • Financial analyst
  • Investment banker
  • Asset / portfolio manager
  • Accountant / auditor
  • Actuary
  • Risk analyst

A list, not a recommendation. You narrow it, we don’t.

What this kind of work usually offers

Earning well · SecurityA generalisation about the sphere, not a promise about a salary. Pay and security vary enormously by country and employer.

How you get there

The one-line version

Finance or economics. Investment and trading competitions (like Wharton's) are the accessible proving ground.

Stage by stage

  1. While you are still at school

    Maths, and get genuinely fast in a spreadsheet. Investment and trading competitions give you the vocabulary early; running a small paper portfolio and writing down WHY you bought each thing teaches judgement.

  2. What you study

    Finance, economics or accounting, though this sector also hires maths, physics and engineering graduates for quantitative roles. Professional qualifications (CFA, ACCA and their national equivalents) matter here more than in most fields.

  3. How the first years actually go

    Junior analyst work: building and checking models, gathering data, preparing decks. Expect the first years to be about accuracy and stamina rather than insight; judgement is what you are being trained toward, not hired for.

Where this work lives, and how you reach it

What you would study for it

Each says what the first year is really made of, and who should study something else instead.

17 countries · 29 cities · 33 institutions named for this field. Each one states its catch as well as its appeal.

Without leaving home

2 of the routes that need no visa and no move lead into this field.

Test it this month

Free, and finishable in a few evenings

Pick one company you can research, build a simple valuation of it in a spreadsheet, and write a one-page argument for or against owning it. Then have someone attack the assumptions. That conversation is the job.

Do the job for an afternoon, before you pick a degree

Employers build these to recruit, which is why they are honest about what the work is. You do the real tasks, unpaid and ungraded, and find out whether you can stand it. Free, no deadline, nothing to win.

  • J.P. Morganabout 4 hours

    Work a deal from the bank's side: read a client's numbers, build a simple valuation, and assemble the pitch that would be put in front of them.

These are on Forage. Search it by the employer’s name — what each one is called changes, and who built it does not.

Open Forage from the catalog

These are ways to try Money & markets before committing to it.