Investment jobs: 3 entry-level jobs that pay you to learn about investing. Consider these roles: mutual fund representative, stock broker, and financial advisor.
Let me start by saying the way someone makes money is more important than how much they make.
This is why I’ve always pursued careers based on my personal interests.
Alternatively, many people pursue money rather than careers that are based on topics they want to learn more about. I view this as selling out.
If you are interested in investing, though, you can pursue money and your personal interests. Investment jobs are available that pay well while simultaneously allow you to learn about investing. In fact, they will pay you to take investment courses.
This is how I initially educated myself on the investment industry—my former employer paid for me to take the Canadian Securities Course (CSC) and the Conduct Practices Handbook (CPH).
I also learned about the investment industry by working as a mutual fund advisor and stock broker.
Although there are disadvantages of working in the investment industry, investment jobs are still a great way to build up a foundation of knowledge in the early stages of your career.
In this post, I will show you 3 investment jobs that will pay you to learn about investing.
Let’s get started.
Investment Jobs: 3 Jobs That Pay You To Learn About Investing
1. Mutual Fund Advisor
A mutual fund advisor is the perfect entry-level job to gain experience in the industry.
If you have some prior work experience in the financial services industry, and if you are willing to take the courses needed to become licensed, almost anyone can become a mutual fund advisor if they want.
Personally, I would recommend getting an entry level bank job first. Because then you can get the bank to pay for your courses.
After you complete the necessary courses, you can work as a licensed mutual fund advisor at a branch or over the phone.
This is exactly how I started off my career in the investment industry. I worked as a mutual fund advisor by phone for two years from 2012 to 2014.
It was an excellent way to learn about risk tolerance, investment time frames, diversification, and the way the investment industry works.
If you work as a mutual fund advisor, you learn about KYC, which stands for “know your client”, and the process banks use to recommend mutual funds to clients. In addition, you will get quarterly investment updates and information that the public is generally not privy to hearing.
2. Stock Broker
A stock broker places trades for people that don’t trade online.
Basically, they take calls, chats, emails, or in-person meetings to make trades on behalf of clients.
The key difference between a stock broker and an advisor is that a stock broker does not provide any investment advice. They just execute trades.
However, stock brokers have access to state-of-the-art tools, and they get to see what retail investors are doing.
Frankly, it’s a great way to learn what not to do. Because when you work as a stock broker, you quickly realize that a lot of investors are not making any money. They simply don’t know what they are doing.
Of course, you get the privilege of viewing some millionaires’ holdings from time to time. When I worked as a stock broker, the most I ever saw was an account worth over $50 million. This individual was receiving more than $400,000 from dividends per quarter.
3. Financial Advisor
Once you have built up enough experience in the investment industry, you could consider becoming an investment advisor to make more money.
But this role is more about sales than it is about investing.
To be a successful financial advisor, it is probably best to be an extrovert that enjoys schmoozing people.
To put it bluntly, it’s the same as any sales role, whether you are a car salesperson, mortgage advisor, or account manager for a corporation.
In my view, these kinds of roles are all the same. Your job is to sell a product.
But at least for financial advisors, the product is investments. It’s their job to study and learn about the product in order to sell it well.
They get to build relationships with portfolio managers, who can educate and mentor them.
As such, it’s a great way to get paid well to learn about investing.
Disadvantages Of Investment Jobs
Although investment jobs are a great way to build knowledge early on, I actually think they hold investors back in the long term.
In short, regulations, short-term thinking, late-adopting executives, and sales-minded cultures hold the investment industry back.
For example, if you work as a stock broker, your trades are automatically processed behind clients’ trades. In addition, all of your trades are monitored by a compliance officer and your brokerage account(s) have to be at the broker you work for.
Furthermore, you end up studying so much unimportant information that you don’t have time to analyze investments on your own. You’re always working during market hours, too.
The investment industry has this perverse interest in overcomplicating things. They overcomplicate investing in an unnecessary way. Eventually, some investors don’t believe they have the skillset to invest for themselves anymore. They think they need complex data and teams of suits that have their CFA certificates.
For these reasons, I think investment jobs are a great way to learn in the early stages of your career. But after you gain experience and an understanding of how the markets work, I think you can learn more by reading books and through self-study.
Investment Jobs – Final Thoughts
Investment jobs are a great way to get paid to gain a basic understanding of investing.
They will show you how the investment industry works, help you find mentors, and provide an inside perspective that most retail investors are not privy to viewing.
In most cases, they will even pay for investment courses so you can become more knowledgeable.
On the other hand, investment jobs have limitations and downsides.
As such, I think it’s best to move on from the entry-level investment jobs after enough knowledge is gained. Otherwise, you’re just a corporate employee that isn’t applying what was learned.
Once you have built up a foundation, you can learn more by self-educating, reading books on investing, and through actually investing for yourself.
If you truly know enough about investing, and if you really enjoy it, you can use what you learned to invest for yourself and pursue financial independence.
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I am not a licensed investment or tax adviser. All opinions are my own. This post may contain advertisements by Monumetric. This post may also contain internal links, affiliate links to BizBudding, Amazon, Bluehost, and Questrade, links to trusted external sites, and links to RTC social media accounts.
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