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Steps to Becoming a Financial Advisor
To enter into this business field, financial advisors need at least a bachelor’s degree in economics, finance, or even business. You’ll also take part in an internship before graduation, then undergo on-the-job training under an experienced financial advisor.
Once you are hired as a financial advisor, you will have to obtain either a certification or license that allows you to work with clients. Such certification helps your clients to trust your financial advice.
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Step 1: Start Your Degree
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Step 2: Choose Your Major/Focus
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Step 3: Earn Your Degree
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Step 4: Gain Experience
Step 1: Start Your Degree
Request admission to the school of your choice. Once you know you’re in that school, begin to study the curriculum requirements and the courses you have to take. You’ll be required to take between 120 and 128 credit hours for a finance diploma (this will be a combination of your general education, business core, university electives, major area, and electives). Learn what the academic requirements are so that you move smoothly toward graduation with no hitches.
If you choose to focus your education on one specific aspect of financial advising or planning, make sure you know which additional classes, if any, you need to take. Maintain the required GPA for your major—doing so will make it a certainty that you’ll graduate on time. If you are unsure about the finance specialization you want to pursue, you can start with a two year associates in finance.
Step 2: Choose Your Major/Focus
Learn about the requirements for becoming a financial advisor. You’ll have to enroll in a university finance or economics major to learn what it is to be a financial advisor and be able to carry out the daily, required tasks for your clientele. At a minimum, you should earn a bachelor’s degree in either finance, economics, or accounting.
Depending on your elective, you may choose to focus your financial advisor career on investments, financial planning, risk management, financial management, insurance, or even banking.
Step 3: Earn Your Degree
Use your courses to learn exactly what you’ll be doing when you enter the working world. These include applying financial and economic theories that will help you to create, evaluate, and manage finance and security portfolios.
As a financial advisor, you’ll be preparing, analyzing, and interpreting financial information. You’ll begin to apply basic principles of security markets in your decision-making. You’ll learn how to describe the legal and regulatory implication of the market to clients.
As a financial advisor, you should be skilled in collaboration, communication, leadership and influencing within the organization that hires you, so you can help to achieve the goals of your employer. Through all of your classes, you’ll learn how to collect, research, synthesize, and interpret data by using technology tools you will be introduced to.
Finally, financial advisors will be making use of market principles and entrepreneurial skills. Financial advisors identify business opportunities, then develop and implement them in your daily work.
Step 4: Gain Experience
Look for internship opportunities that, once you graduate, may lead to employment. For instance, financial advisors may work with companies such as Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Deloitte Consulting, KPMG, or Protivi.
Within these companies and internships, you’ll be assigned to work at specific roles and duties so that you learn the daily responsibilities of a financial advisor. If your work impresses the company officers or your internship supervisor, you may receive either a job offer or a job recommendation.
Whether financial advisors are competing for an internship or a job spot, it is important to be prepared by studying the general qualifications required. Prepare yourself while you are still in school by ensuring your GPA is as high as possible. Develop skills such as customer service, written and verbal communication, problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership.
Career and Salary
Where Might You Work?
When you graduate or complete your training, you will have several fields in which you may find employment. This list includes personal financial planning, corporate finance, real estate, investment banking, asset management, and commercial banking.
This is only a partial list, but it can give you a good idea of where a financial advisor can find gainful employment. You may also work for the government (local, state, or federal). It just depends on your knowledge, specialization, and skillset. If you want to have the widest range of opportunities, then you should take as many additional classes as you can in statistics, math, liberal arts, accounting, and economics.
If you are interested in business administration with a concentration in finance, you’ll be able to become skilled in financial accounting, investments, risk assessment, and capital and money markets.
Financial advisors may find a position as a securities, commodities, and financial service sales agent. In this role, you are responsible for introducing buyers and sellers to each other within the financial markets. You’ll sell securities to individuals, give financial advice to companies looking for investors, and conduct financial trades.
As a personal financial advisor, it’s your job to give financial advice to your clients. You may also look at their taxes and investments, and delve into their insurance decisions, then help them to make better choices with their money.