Careers 24: Live with Corporate, Financial, and Accounting Services

As an undergraduate trying to figure out which direction I would like to head in, I found the Careers 24 panel on finance and accounting to be extremely helpful. Timothy Dowling, from Deutsche Bank, had an interesting insight about the career paths undergraduates should take based on their current scholastic preferences that I found interesting. If a student excels more in a class that they have to write a semester long paper about a particular subject and they like to fully understand that topic before moving on, then corporate finance would be the ideal setting for that individual. He also remarked that his company is looking for people who want to learn. Other companies also clarified what they are looking for during their interview process. I found the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group's criteria to be the most insightful; Will McDade said that the main things they look for are: passion, grades, and sociability. He stressed the importance of extracurricular activities on an individual's résumé that demonstrate to their group that he or she would fit in well, such as being in a fraternity or a sorority. Another thing I learned is that even though a person might be qualified to do several different jobs, this doesn't mean the jobs are the same. Every company has unique and different cultures. At some places like Deutsche Bank, you have to wear suits and ties and work long hours, while at others, such as Dell, everyday is "casual Friday" and how many hours your work can be manager specific. Like Will McDade said, "Finance and accounting is a good way to get in the door but you can go a lot of different places with it." I think that is a great message to send undergraduates as we're trying to discover which path we want to go down and what it's going to take to get us to where we want to be.