Chapter 1: Corporate Finance · Job 1 of 3
Financial Analyst
Takes piles of raw numbers and works out what they mean.
What does this person do?
A financial analyst looks at a company’s numbers (sales, costs, cash) and works out what they mean. Most of the work happens in spreadsheets, where analysts build reports and models that show what’s going on and what could happen next.
The part that matters most is explaining it. Saying costs went up 8% is easy. Figuring out why, and what the company should do about it, is the real job.
What a normal week might include
- Pulling and cleaning data from the company's systems
- Building and updating spreadsheet models and dashboards
- Writing short summaries of what the numbers mean
- Meeting with sales, operations, or marketing to answer their questions
Skills that help
- Excel and spreadsheet modeling
- Explaining numbers in plain English
- Curiosity about why things happened
- Attention to detail
How people get into it
Most people start with a college degree in finance, accounting, economics, or business. Plenty come from math or engineering too. An internship helps a lot. From there you can move up to senior analyst or manager, or cross over into FP&A or corporate development.
Meet the analysts
Real interviews are on their way. Every story is approved by the person in it before it goes up here. Until then, the free PDF has sample profiles that show how they'll read.
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