No matter what the economy is doing, there will always be a need for entry level finance jobs. There is only so much that can be replaced by software and computers. If you like numbers and you have an analytical mind, you can be certain that you’ll be able to land a decent entry level position when the time comes.
Every industry has the need for finance and accounting personnel at many levels and many salary ranges. Small mom and pop corner stores to national auto finance companies all need someone to track income and expenses and help figure out what the net profit is on a regular basis. After all, that is the entire purpose of the finance department: managing money and knowing how profitable you are.
In small companies, entry level jobs are frequently job shared by the secretaries and even the front desk receptionist. It is common for perhaps the sales secretary to also be responsible for tracking the expenses and expense reports of the staff sales and account reps. A front desk receptionist might have the added responsibility tracking accounts receivable for perhaps office supplies, catering, and maybe even managing expenses for office temp help.
If your goal is to get into the upper echelon of finance professionals, an entry level position might not be the best way to go about it. Usually, for positions that entail more knowledge than putting together a trial balance report (that balances!), you’ll need formal education which could be anything from a certificate program to a college degree. A popular certificate program is for medical billing and coding. It’s only about nine months long, it’s in demand, and provides a decent salary, but that’s all your will learn and there’s no room for growth.
Typically, an entry level job will require certain knowledge in order to be hired, then you can build on this as time goes on. Even a very niched type of job (accounts receivable for instance) will still teach you a few things, even if it’s only industry specific. It’s normal for an HR person who previously had only general duties assigned which included everything from hiring to managing their benefit plan, to choose a numbers focused job that only involved benefits account functionality. It’s also common for sales secretaries to figure out they are bored with the travel arrangements and decide to move on to accounting where they will have only responsibility for sales commissions and budgets.
If there is a particular industry you are interested in learning about, you might want to consider researching what types of entry level jobs exist, and prepare for one of them. Perhaps you love animals. You may want to explore finance jobs at the corporate office of a large pet store, or even start off as a cashier and work your way up. Or maybe fashion is your passion and you would like to work for a leading department store. Frequently there are many accounting jobs at each location since cash receipts need to be tallied up at the end of each day.
Keep in mind that your first concern needs to be how detailed oriented you are. Of course, you should also have an affinity for being able to successfully work with numbers. If you are one of the many individuals who hates the thought of balancing the check book each month, however, you might want to consider another field.
