Personal and Professional Journey: Balancing Education, Work, and Career Aspirations

Career Action Plan

I am a Business student, seeking to advance my career as a Financial Analyst. At the moment, I work as a cashier at a local bar on a part-time basis. This means that on weekdays, during the hours after school, I would head to the local bar to work until closing time. As a cashier, my work was to collect cash payments from clients, prepare cash records for the day, and forward the records and the money to the chief accountant. My hobbies include reading informative books, looking out for new business ideas, and participating in community programs. Reading informative books impacts my career by allowing me to gain vast knowledge about how different successful businesspersons identified different niches in the markets and took advantage of them to build prosperous empires, despite the hurdles they encountered. Looking out for new business ideas impacts my career choice by giving me the opportunity to acquire business ideas by browsing online, listening to what people say, and watching out for business trends via news channels. I am currently located at Moseley Village in Wolverhampton. I have three brothers, as I am the third child of four.

The major career transition that I am facing at the moment is trying to merge school and part-time work. This is because I need money for personal upkeep throughout University, in addition to what I may be receiving from my parents and relatives. One of the options I am considering is working over the weekend. I have been pondering about how I can get work of cleaning a local soccer stadium after matches that take place every weekend. My career ideas include working as a finance analyst in the treasury or any top organization present in Britain. I am confident about these career goals because I have relatives whose careers relate to finance and through their guidance and advice, I can be able to make the right chain of decisions which will guide me to my goals.

Through this career plan, I target to reflect upon my skills as a way of auditing my personal strengths and development needs in relation to my employability skills and my future career. I am confident that I would like to work as a financial analyst because I would like to understand and be able to predict changes in the economy so that not only can I advise professional organizations, but also my friends and relatives about the economic decisions they need or should make in an underlying economic climate. In order to enter into the particular career, I shall focus on my studies. On my third and final year of study, I shall take up internship opportunities during breaks from school, such as winter and summer breaks, to gain practical experience concerning my career. Also, I intend to join clubs which are related to business and finance in the university, such as the International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences whose acronym, derived from the French definition, is AIESEC (AIESEC (UK), 2019).

Ideal Situation

As aforementioned, the job I would like to do in future is financial analysis. The type of work I would like to do as a financial analyst include auditing budgets, processes, investments, business performance as well as other financial procedures (Randstad, 2019). I would like to engage in recommending organizations on the strategies they ought to use to reduce the business expenditures which are not relevant as well as strategies of saving costs. The group of clients I would like to work with include managers and accountants from any organizations which use financial information. Other client groups include investors and entrepreneurs, to whom the economic trends are crucial in their decisions regarding business ventures they would like to take up. The organization I would specifically like to work in is the government. This is the most preferable due to assurance of job security. This preference, though, does not limit me from choosing to work for alternative organizations. In the case where I would not be working in a government institution, I will want to work in the fashion and design industry. This is owing to the popularity and increasing market of the fashion and design industry within the nation and globally. As a financial analyst in the government, I would like to work closely with the finance minister. Alternatively, I would like to work with managers and chief accountants in the private organizations that I may acquire employment.

The skills that I shall be using in this ideal situation include performance management, risk management, quality management, budgeting, auditing and financial forecasting. I would like to live and work in London or any other major city which has offices of the treasury. My work will be beneficial in that it shall provide job security since being a qualified financial analyst gives the assurance that there shall always exist organizations which will be in need of an individual to audit its budgeting and other financial procedures. Also, since the career is highly attractive, the salary scale will be good enough to allow me to afford a nice car, and enough time over the weekends to spend with my friends and family.

Nonetheless, despite the growing importance of sustainability accounting in the UK, it can be argued that responses from accounting schools towards integrating sustainability accounting in education and training are slow and there lag sustainability educated accounting graduates (Gray, 2013; Khan, 2011).

Tasks Completed

Job Study

For this task, I was able to identify an older cousin who works as a financial analyst in the treasury. During my upbringing, we interacted and this allowed me to view his upward progress in the career. As I wish to progress into this career over the next few years in my life, I got to envision myself through him. Entry requirements to the job position include a Bachelor’s degree in finance, or any course that is related to finance and added experience through internships will increase the likelihood of acquiring the job. One can begin the career as a junior financial analyst in an organization and, as they gain experience and knowledge related to the post, they will be awarded promotions eventually resulting in their growth into a chief financial analyst. A typical day would involve scheming through financial statements, making audits and preparing necessary budgetary requirements. As a tip to anyone beginning the career, they ought to be ready to spend long hours in office and remain keen on every figure in financial statements since any little error can culminate into a large problem.

Organization study

One organization that is present within my sector is Equifax, a company which uses data analytics, assets and technology to transform information into insights which bolster better decision making. The knowledge it has allows its customers to enhance their decisions and progress towards living better lives. The company earns revenue by stewarding financial literacy, serving as a consumer advocate and championing for economic advancement. The company allows access to credit services and works to address the complex problems in the society relating to community relations, financial education, and social welfare for the youth who are underprivileged. The company also helps people acquire financial independence by providing micro-lending services and capital access to small businesses.

The organization markets itself by preparation of product brochures, infographics, case studies, and articles which empower the communities by giving people knowledge that extends beyond aiding them in making informed personal and business decisions. The organization recruits suitable employees through its online website where vacancies in different departments are presented ranging from internships to managerial level vacancies (Equifax, Inc, 2019). By working in such an organization, I shall be in a position to explore my risk management, performance management, financial forecasting, and quality management skills.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

In relation to my ideal situation, the strengths I possess include performance management, quality management, budgeting and auditing. This is because of my personal values of being attentive to details and engaging creative thinking in my scope of work. I like helping people make better personal decisions and aspire to aid companies in doing so in part of business decisions and as a result, I believe I have great performance management skills. Also, I like keeping in touch with business trends, therefore, I have relevant knowledge of distinguishing between urgent and less urgent resources. This enables me to have great budget allocation skills and the ability to audit financial processes in an organization.

Weaknesses

The weaknesses which could pose as a barrier to my ideal situation include risk management and financial forecasting. I am determined to help people make quality decisions, but the current limitation I have in order to be able to do so is being able to foresee the future. This particularly owes to the fact that I have not had good contact with data analytics technology and lack confidence in identifying risks which underlie certain business courses of action. Also, I still possess basic knowledge about the work that a financial analyst does because my current experience is at the level of a cashier in a local bar. Furthermore, considering that I have school during the day time and part-time work in the evenings, I tend to have little time to read business-related books in the library which would sharpen my knowledge and skills.

Opportunities

Some of the entry routes that I have identified for the financial analyst job field is taking up internship opportunities in organizations and enrolling in a postgraduate professional course of certified public accountants or a master’s degree in business administration. The opportunities which I have created to build on my skills include working as a cashier and making an effort to research about the AIESEC organization for future professionals. Also, the nation’s finance ministry is dynamic such that new employment opportunities are presented where everyone can equally make an application and be considered for a vacancy. Self-employment is another valuable alternative in this profession whereby I would set up my own firm which offers financial advisory services not only to people, but also organizations.

Threats

The main threat highlighted by this research is that there are many other candidates seeking employment as financial analysts. This is due to the attractiveness of the job, especially due to its security and high salary. More students are majoring in business in order to take up the financial analyst career and this is a threat because, in order to acquire a job in this field, I would have to work extra harder to acquire prior experience before qualifying for the entry level. This is a challenge I am ready to combat and my confidence emanates from my determination and readiness to learn from my role models.

Steps towards Goals

In order to achieve my goals, I will have to complete some professional steps successfully. The first step is by acquiring knowledge through learning in school. Theoretical knowledge will be necessary before getting the opportunity to apply it in the work environment. I shall also seek a career counselor or any other trained specialist whom, together with other people that I look up to in this career, can give me quality advice for my career development. Thus allowing me to forge a career path that is more successful. Also, I seek to acquire practical knowledge by being in working environments related to my career path. For example, at the moment, I am working as a cashier at a local bar and within the next three years, I intend to join the bandwagon of interns seeking professional experience working in various organizations.

Some of the challenges that I encounter throughout these steps include my personal characteristics and financial resources. I am currently working on developing the correct personality type that suits the work of a financial analyst. This requires open-mindedness, and having an interest in business trends. Also, I have to be flexible such that I can be able to identify hazards before they grow in to risks. For this reason, I will have to engage in self-assessment and one way I am doing so is by devising the career actions plan. Also, I will need financial resources for the purpose of paying fees throughout university in order to acquire bachelor’s degree in finance which will fuel my desire to become a financial analyst (Rosenberg, 2018).

Bibliography

• AIESEC (UK). (2019). About. Retrieved from aiesec.co.uk: https://www.aiesec.co.uk/about/
• Equifax, Inc. (2019). Careers at Equifax. Retrieved from equifax.com: https://careers.equifax.com/global/en
• Randstad. (2019). Financial analyst job description. Retrieved from randstad.co.uk: https://www.randstad.co.uk/career-advice/job-profiles/financial-analyst-job-description/
• Rosenberg, D. M. (2018). What Is Career Development? Retrieved from thebalancecareers.com: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-career-development-525496