CFA Institute poll of graduates affirms finance as a stable career choice, but results reveal need to pivot toward purpose
Whether it’s about people’s retirement plans, their investment strategies, or their ability to achieve financial goals, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a true test of confidence in many ways. For some, navigating the crisis has been about keeping calm and carrying on; for others, it’s been revisiting their charts and setting out a new course.
Even amid this historic crisis, many households, employees, and businesses have stayed steadfastly optimistic. And the findings of a recent CFA Institute study show a similar story playing out among the workers and financial professionals of tomorrow.
In a global survey of more than 15,000 current university students and recent graduates aged 18 to 25 years old across 15 markets, the institute found that 58.2% of respondents were quite confident or very confident about their future career prospects in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As for their knowledge of what employers are looking for in graduate employees, a similar proportion of respondents (60.9%) said they were quite confident or somewhat confident in their awareness.
The results among the Canadian respondents to the survey were similar, said Carole Crawford, managing director for the Americas at the CFA Institute. Slightly less than two thirds of those polled from Canada said they were confident in their career prospects in the wake of COVID-19 (64%) and in knowing what employers want from graduate employees.
“It wasn’t really a surprise,” Crawford said, describing her reaction to the results in an interview with Wealth Professional. “It was actually a source of excitement, to be honest. It showed that even faced with this historic challenge, graduates and college students aren’t getting disheartened.”
The results also affirmed that finance, which has a reputation as a stable field, is still an attractive career choice for graduates and grads-to-be. Across all 15 markets, finance was ranked fifth among careers where respondents were most confident about their career prospects (cited by 14.5%). Among fields where graduates see stable and attractive career prospects, finance placed sixth (14.4%).
In those dimensions, Canadian respondents also tracked close to the global results. Crawford said the finance industry ranked seventh as an industry in terms of confidence and sixth in perceptions of stable and attractive career prospects.
Still, graduates’ view of finance as a career isn’t all blue skies and rainbows. While 26% of the respondents in the global survey saw finance as the most valuable university major/subject in their career search, around half as many (13.5%) felt finance and investment would be the most difficult field to get into, making it seventh among all careers evaluated.
Speaking to the Canadian results, Crawford said 29% of Canadian respondents were concerned about working in a sector that would neither fulfill nor interest them. Nearly the same number expressed apprehension as they felt underqualified for the job (28%), that there weren’t enough jobs in their preferred sector (27%), or that they weren’t ready for the working world (27%).
Possibly the most revealing result had to do with graduates’ collective desire to have a career with purpose. Nearly nine tenths of respondents globally (86.6%) and in Canada (88%) said it was important for them to be able to make a positive societal and environmental contribution through their career.
However, respondents across the world gave “investment professional” a low standing among careers where they believe they can offer a positive societal and environmental contribution, ranking it 21 out of 29 careers listed. In a related finding, those answering a question about what career they most wanted placed “investment professional” 18th out of 27 careers considered.
“I think this is a great opportunity for us as an industry to debunk some of those myths around finance, especially along the lines of our ability to have a positive societal and environmental impact,” Crawford said.
If there ever was a time for the investment profession to redeem its reputation for doing good, it’s right now. As Crawford noted, there has been an increased focus in the industry on ESG concerns and how they fit into the investment decision-making process. As more investors seek to bake sustainability and purpose into their strategies, institutions in both the private and academic circles have displayed an increasing demand for credentials and programs aimed at honing professionals’ ability to look through a multi-faceted lens that goes beyond profit.
“We've seen a lot of demand from both universities as well as employers in CFA Institute’s certificate for ESG investing, which we launched globally just recently,” she said.
Beyond its efforts at education, CFA Institute has also been working on crafting global standards for ESG disclosure, which would provide an accountability framework for the investment industry to provide material ESG-related information for investors to make sound decisions. Of course, because of the competing definitions and differing regulatory regimes across the world, drawing neat and bright lines to define categories of products and thresholds of “ESG-friendliness” is a significant challenge.
Still, those are the baby steps that lead to giant strides. As Crawford said: “Finance remains an attractive field for graduates even in uncertain times. At the same time, we recognize that there’s a growing interest in careers where professionals can make a positive societal and environmental contribution. That’s where the industry is going, and we certainly hope to participate and be at the forefront of that trend.”
