Career in Finance Analysis or Brand Management

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Introduction

My goal is to become an Investment Analyst with or a Brand Manager. The choice for these careers is dependent on my personality, motivation, skills, values, constraints, ambitions, and opportunities. Therefore, aspects like compensation, job satisfaction, job duties and activities, typical working hours, advancement and lifestyle are considered. In this document, I include my plan for the two careers and make a comparison of the two with an aim of finding which career best suits me.

Plan for the Investment Analysis and Brand Management career

The first step towards either my investment analysis or brand management careers is gathering information on both fields on compensation, job satisfaction, job duties and activities, typical working hours, opportunities for advancement and the kind of lifestyle the career would earn me, besides the education and investment on the education needed.

At the moment I need to contact at least two of local modern Investment Analysts and Brand Managers to get information and advice on how to get an Investment Analyst or a Brand Manager Title and job. That would necessitate the following:

Check with Tertiary Education Commission office for information on Investment Analysts and Brand Manager in at least five organizations.
Contact about five local organizations that can offer employment on each of the two careers.
Find out and inquire from these employers about the personal attributes, appropriate qualifications or experience, and skills that they expect from Investment Analysts and Brand Managers.
Summarize the information gathered from these employers as well as the investments analysts and brand manager for advice on what I ought to do.

This should be accomplished in about four weeks.

Subsequently, depending on information gathered, the following would be necessary:

Volunteering with a local employer for work experience on the department relevant to the brand management and investment analysis.
Inquire about the costs, commencement dates, and contents of the courses that lead to investment analysis and brand management career from at least ten learning institutions.
Inquire about students’ allowances and loans from organizations like StudyLink.
For information about student loans and allowances
Application and enrollment for a course

On top of the first hand information, there are available literatures that provide information and guide on attaining the aim of becoming a brand manager or an investment analyst.

Facts about investment analyst career

Investment Analysts are sometimes referred to as Financial Analyst or Securities Analyst. Financial Analysts can work for investment brokers, pension funds, banks, investment management firms, insurance firms, and investment banks (Lambert, p. 101). A financial or investment analyst is tasked with evaluation of the economic situation of entire industries or single organizations with the aim of making recommendations on investments. The nature of the job requires that investment analyst be updated in terms of finance, business, industrial technology, and economic principle. It is worth to note that investment analysts are responsible in the management of much of the United States’ capital where they assume the roles of economist, forecaster, and financial detective.

Training and Qualifications for Investment Analysts

Entrant into investment analysis starts with a trainee position. A Bachelor’s degree in finance, economics, or business administration can qualify an individual for the trainee position. However, the business administration degree is preferable by most organizations (Ring, p.80). Employment opportunities increase with good academic performance as well as involvement in various extracurricular activities.

The necessary steps that allow one to enter into this field are taking courses in investment, economics, finance, banking, and accounting. Moreover, experience in financial organizations probably through internship is necessary, and it also allows the candidate exposure and experience in this area.

Personal attributes such as powerful motivation in search for obscure information and ability to recall details are vital for an analyst. Additionally, this career requires the ability to work in independence as well as making reliable analyses of the economic dynamics.

Also investment analyst should know the accounting methods, equity market operations, transactions of securities, and tax regulations and their effects. What is more, communications skills in both written and verbal form are necessary as is resourcefulness, tact, and initiatives.

Compensation, typical working hours, Lifestyle

The lowest salary for investment Analysts is about $29,000 per year. However, average salary range is $50,000 to $64,000 in a year. In some cases, analysts can earn up to an average of $100,000 and more in year; (SCEDDLMIDISG) nonetheless, this high remuneration is qualified to experienced analyst where their extra efforts earns them some bonuses.

The typical working hours for an investment analyst is 40 hours in a week. As any other employee, they are entitled to additional benefits like medical insurance and vacation packages.

According to a 1995 research by State of California, Employment Development Department, growth in the investment analyst sector in terms of the number of workers is 25%; in 2005 about 4,420 people were in employed as investment analysts.

Advancement

Investment analysts have the opportunity of progressing as long as he is qualified. Usually analysts attend to extra responsibilities that contribute to his or her advancement. It is common to have analyst being nationally recognized as specialists within a particular industry, while others master their trade to the extent that they are awarded management responsibilities within an industry. However, the success of investment analyst is rated with his capability and experience in assessing accurately trends in equity market.

Facts about a brand management career

The responsibility of brand managers entails mainly planning, development, and directing of the marketing mix related to a particular brand name or product (WetFeet, 51; Lake; Marshall). Their work stretch to coordination of responsibilities and efforts with other employees who are involved in specific roles associated with production, marketing research, advertising, sales, promotion, Research and Development, purchasing, package development, distribution, and finance (WetFeet 51; Mogel, 224; Lake; Marshall).

Employment, Job Opportunities and Advancement

In America, almost all organizations that deal with consumer goods have a department that requires the expertise of brand management. What is more, several companies the deal exclusively with industrial goods have product or a brand management position. It is worth to note that experience in brand management in a firm dealing with consumer goods is a stepping stone towards a senior position in the corporate ladder. In most organizations, especially ones dealing with consumer goods, most brand managers begin as brand assistants.

Training and Qualifications for Brand management

Attributes that describe good brand managers include result-oriented, great creativity, good communication and analytical skill, entrepreneurial inclination. The core elements of marketing are a must for brand managers. Therefore, brand managers must have a good foundation on advertising, consumer behavior, strategy, and research. In addition, to become a brand manager, analytical skills are vital and accounting and financial courses would be essential for this. More often than not, companies hire fresh employees as brand assistants who are obliged to undergo and pass sales training programs provided by the company through seminars and special courses. Although, these jobs have traditionally been offered to MBA graduates, today companies give undergraduates the opportunity.

Compensation and remuneration

The average remuneration for brand managers in the United States is $76,000. According to Lake (about.com), the salary range of “more than 50% of Brand Managers” is $65,597 to $87,169 per year. In the filed of marketing, brand and product managers “have the most opportunities to move rapidly up the pay scale”; salaries can range from $50,000 to $88,000 depending on the level of entry into the responsibility (WetFeet,51). There have been reports on Assistant Brand Managers who receive a salary package of $90,000 in the United States; however, these professionals are mostly post-MBA (Vault). An Assistant Brand Manager earns an average of $33,000 on the lower side (Mogel, p. 224).

Job satisfaction, Lifestyle and typical working hours

Job satisfaction highlights the feelings and attitudes of employees towards their work (Armstrong, 264). Although there are few surveys on brand managers in regard to job satisfaction, Cummings helps us conclude that in earlier days brand managers had an advantage over modern-day product managers as far as job satisfaction is concerned (150). A recent study indicates that a large percentage of brand managers are unhappy due to what they actually spend time solving as opposed to what they wished to be doing. It is common for brand managers to mostly be “responding to sales requests and expediting products” rather than “developing strategies for products” (Gorchels, p. 310). Gorchels furthers argues that there is a high level of disillusionment within the brand management sector due to several factors such as overwhelming tasks and strict scrutiny by top management with unprecedented availability of market data (313). However, generally, day-to-day activities for a product manager consume approximately 40% to 55% of his time; out of these 20% to 30% is spent on short term tasks, while 15% to 25% goes on long terms activities (Esen; Gorchels, p. 310).

Conclusion

The opportunities for both careers are almost equal. The careers fall understudy of business courses where an individual is expected to have good grades as well as participate in extracurricular as a measure of the prospect for success in these fields. The remunerations are relatively fair although there is a likelihood of an investment analyst receiving lower wages at during job entry. Generally, brand management offers better remuneration. Most of the aspects in the two careers do not present significantly advantageous differences

Work cited

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Chesnutt, W. Charles, Wilson, M. Waddell, Schaik, M. A. Van, A Business Career, University Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Cummings, W. Theodore, Jackson, Jr, W. Donald, Ostrom, L. Lonnie, Examining Product Managers’ Job Satisfaction and Performance Using Selected Organizational Behavior Variables, journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 147-156, 1989.
Esen, Evren, Society for Human Resource Management, Human Resources & Personnel Management, Society for Human Resource Management, 2006.
Gorchels, Linda, The Product Manager’s Handbook, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2005.
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Lore, Nicholas, The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career For a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success, Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, 1997.
Mogel, Leonard, Creating Your Career in Communications and Entertainment, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998.
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Tieger, D. Paul, Barron-Tieger, Barbara and Baker, Deborah Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You through the Secrets of Personality Type, Little, Brown & Company, 2001.
USC MArshall, Careers in Brand Management, 2008.
Vault, Brand Manager Salaries & Compensation, 2008.

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