In this episode of What’s New at CFI, you have the whole gang: Ryan Spendelow, Duncan McKeen, Jeff Schmidt, and Sebastian Taylor. We all took part in creating this course that deeply resonates with a major reason why people come to CFI: to learn about career paths in finance and banking and the skills required.

This course is different – it does not talk about roles in isolation but rather places them into the context of a real-life business’ evolution. If you’re not sure what that means, here’s all the more reason to join us and listen to this podcast.

Transcript

Meeyeon (00:13)
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of What’s New at CFI. My name is Meeyeon Park and you’ve probably seen me here before if you’ve listened to our most recent episodes. I’m a VP of Content and Training here at CFI, and today, I’m joined by the full gang here. I have all my colleagues here. We have Seb, we have Jeff, we have Ryan,

and we have Duncan, all of us here today. And now we’re going to talk about one of my favorite courses, our latest course. And it’s very, it’s very special to all of us because it really introduces kind of the purpose of CFI altogether. Now, this course came together while I was on mat leave, and I was able to jump in and near the final stages. But with that said, this is going to be a real, genuine, organic interview,

where I myself am also learning about why we made this course, who we made it for, and what we expect a learner to get out of it. So to kick things off, let’s talk about why we made this course.

Sebastian Taylor (01:15)
Well, one of the things we’ve learned over the past few years is that a large chunk of the students that come to CFI for their finance knowledge are either new to or transitioning into the finance industry. And so some of the key resources that we know people are after are a career map and guides to specific roles within the finance industry. So this course has allowed us to kind of do both of those things in one go

and to give students a complete guide to all of the common roles, at least within the finance industry, what they do, and how they all fit together.

Meeyeon (01:55)
I love that. And one thing that I wanted to talk about today was what I think makes this course after kind of after we all put it together and I got to see it after production, why I think it’s so unique. And what you’ll quickly learn is when you take this course that it’s got a very different approach than all of our other courses because it’s set to a narrative. It’s set to the story, if you will, of a company growing from inception to maturity,

and we take it through the lens of Tesla Motors. And what you see is that as a growing company, as a company grows, its corporate needs grow, but also the founders’ needs grow in a unique way. And you see that there’s a broad range of financial services that it requires throughout its evolution. And in this course, we take each of those interactions that Tesla has with the financial institution in its growth as opportunities to pause and talk about

what that specific finance professional that Tesla is interacting with does. And by the context of the story, you get a much better understanding of what the role is like in real life. And I think this does a really great job of harnessing and showing careers in finance in a way that you see how all of these paths can kind of connect and touch not only each other, so all the careers and how they can kind of interact with each other but also in real life with a client.

And so this is very different from any careers course that we’ve done in the past or article where we just talk about the job in isolation, and we say, this is what a banker does. And like, this is what a wealth manager does. This is what a commercial banker, corporate banker does. What you see is that you see all of that in context. And I think that’s really unique from any other course that I’ve seen done on careers and finance. But that said, yeah.

Sebastian Taylor (03:47)
The other thing over that.

The other thing I would add to that, Meeyeon, is I think in the way that we’ve designed this course, it’s actually watchable in two different ways. One is that totally that story-based approach where you can watch it from the start and you can actually see how the company develops and which different finance functions are brought in. But if you are interested in a specific role, you can jump right to that point in the course, learn about that role. And we’ve actually made sure that we incorporate part of the story in each video to

to help you understand where it fits in in the process. either way, the story totally helps and it allows you to watch it in whichever way you like.

Meeyeon (04:31)
Ooh, yes, love that. And who would we say that this course is really written for?

Ryan (04:40)
Good one. I’ll start and then I’ll hand it over to Jeff. I think one of the major target audiences of this particular course is for people that are new to finance. So many of our CFI learners actually are new to finance and as Seb alluded to. They come to CFI because they’re looking to start or build a career in finance, but it can be really, really daunting for somebody with limited financial background.

So this course is ideal for somebody with not much of a background in finance that’s interested in studying a career in finance and just to help them demystify what all those various roles might be and so they can find the role that perhaps interests them to explore further through a lot of our other career resources that we have at CFI. So I think that’s a really big part of our target audience for this particular course. Jeff.

Jeff Schmidt (05:14)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan (05:37)
What do you think? Any other views on who this course is for?

Jeff Schmidt (05:42)
Sure, it’s definitely great for new professionals, professionals wanting to look into finance. even if they’re a seasoned professional, say maybe their first job was they were certified public accountant, they were auditing firms and they move into FP&A and then they want to move out of FP&A but they’re not quite sure what direction they want to go. Maybe they want to go into equity research or trading or investment banking or capital markets.

So this course is also designed for those types of learners and professionals. even if they have a little experience, they might still want to transition into a different role. it’s great. And Ryan touched on this. It’s great for non-finance professionals as well. Say you work in operations or logistics and you have people coming to you saying, we need to know your budget. And you don’t know anything about finance and you’re

trying to figure out what are all these finance people doing at my organization. You can also watch the course and say, okay, that’s what FP&A does. That’s what business intelligence does. This is why we bring in investment bankers to do certain roles that we don’t do internally. So it really runs the gamut from starting out in your career to having some work experience as well as even for non-finance professionals.

Meeyeon (07:06)
Duncan, what do you hope that learners will take away from this course?

Duncan McKeen (07:12)
That’s a great question. guess maybe before I answer that, the only I’d maybe just add one piece to what Ryan and Jeff said in terms of the audience. And I guess the other group that this course could be great for is at universities and colleges. When you have a career placement services organization or career coaches, a lot of the time, they have a certain knowledge of the finance sector

but maybe they don’t have the broad knowledge of everything that’s available in the finance sector. So I think for that particular audience, for those groups and organizations in universities and colleges really trying to place the graduates, that could be a group that could really benefit from watching this course from start to finish to see the whole scope, the finance sector. But getting back to your question, Meeyeon, about, like, what can learners really get out of this? I think it, I probably…

group the learners may be into two different groups to answer the question. The first group would be like the learners that have limited knowledge of the finance sector. What they can get out of it is really watching the course from start to finish and understanding through that Tesla story as it matures how all of the different financial roles come into play and help Tesla along the way through that journey. And then the other type of learner,

which Jeff mentioned just a moment ago, and that type of learner being the person that’s already working in finance, but maybe interested in a slightly different role, that type of learner, what they can get out of it is they can go right into the course and just target the one section of the course where they think they’re interested in their next career step. And they could probably just get in there, get what they want out of that one section of the course and, be really efficient with their time in that sense. So really depending on what type of, what the type of learner is, they can really

get what they need out of this course, I think.

Meeyeon (09:07)
Yeah, and like just kind of piggybacking off what you said, I think it’s really important to realize that, you know, obviously we want everyone and I can relate as when I was graduating, everybody wants to get that. Everyone wants to get the job that they’re after, like whatever you have at the top of your roster, the top of the roster typically tends to be especially people that are kind of like finance, business, economics, graduates, they want the investment banking job, like that is usually the top of the ladder,

or sales and trading. Now those two are very, different things, but they’re equally competitive and they have certainly far fewer seats than can be occupied. And so it also, I think this course is really important for people to realize that there is so much more outside of those two things. And even if it is ultimately where you want to end up and you’re going to end up, it’s not necessarily going to be a linear path. And what you can see from this course is maybe you could see how

these roles are similar to each other, how they can interact with clients at different stages, and maybe it can help you get a better understanding of if this is not necessarily your first role, how you could eventually kind of build your path and network and get there eventually. And so I think that is a really important part of the course. that’s what really makes it for anyone who has any sort of aspiration or interest to have a career in finance.

Duncan McKeen (10:33)
What you said, Meeyeon, is so true. a lot of the time, what I found teaching at colleges and universities, if you ask, like a third- or fourth-year undergraduate class, how many people want to go into investment banking? Like half the hands go up. And then if you just then target those people that had their hands up, say, well, can you name some of the other roles in finance outside of investment banking? Like a lot of them can’t do it. They just, they think they want investment banking because that’s all that they’ve heard about.

Meeyeon (10:55)
You…

Duncan McKeen (11:02)
So the one thing I think this course really going to help people with is just understanding that there’s so many roles and it might, you know, they might be interested in many, many other roles other than investment banking, which is the one that they hear about very, very commonly, or maybe private equity is another one that ends up coming to mind quickly for them.

Meeyeon (11:22)
Goodness. And then one of the last things I wanted to mention, as we kind of wrap up this podcast is a personal note that I haven’t actually shared before when I was in my undergraduate, I did my internships at Brookfield and their private equity fund when it was starting up and where they were fundraising for it. And then another internship at Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Now I did go to teachers full time, but

Duncan McKeen (11:31)
Thank you.

Meeyeon (11:47)
they knew that I really wanted to be part of like this analyst group with like lots of young people and just kind of have that continuation of camaraderie that university has. And I applied for sales and training. Had like nine interviews, didn’t get any of them. So, well, no, actually I got all the interviews and I did several rounds, but I never got a job. And so that’s the thing. Like after that, I was very, I was like, my gosh, like…

What a bummer, this sucks, but ultimately, I went back to my desk, which is an amazing one, in fixed incomes, and I went into origination off cycle afterward. But the point is that you know, when I was really laser-focused on kind of like sales and trading, I, to Duncan’s point, I didn’t really have a huge idea of what else there was. And truthfully, if you ask me the questions of what other roles are there apart from like traditional investment banking,

sales and trading, origination, syndication, I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question. And so for anyone that is, they’re starting out in their career and just needs to understand there is so much outside of the world of investment banking and capital markets, this course is for you. And for anyone that is in a role already, I would venture to say this course is also for you because there’s so many facets of finance and unless you are really

purposely trying to learn what there is that you might just miss. And missed opportunities are, you know, always missed opportunities. It’s always best to kind of see what the landscape has in its fullness and then be able to decide from there. You never know what’s waiting there for you.

Jeff Schmidt (13:29)
And they’re all intellectually stimulating too. It’s not just one role that everybody wants. All of these roles can be very stimulating, very rewarding, too.

Meeyeon (13:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, they could all be very financially rewarding. That’s an important piece too, because nobody works for free. But the other thing is also just all of these roles tend to generally have very different personality types. A lot of the things that you’ll kind of see in finance, especially careers where it requires, for example, like investment banking, is a fairly extreme career path in that it requires a lot of your time, a lot, a lot of your time, especially early on in your career.

Duncan McKeen (13:40)
I would be.

Meeyeon (14:07)
And therefore, it kind of tends to attract a more extreme personality. And those are the ones that typically stay there from beginning to kind of end. So from analyst to managing director, I know only one person amongst like 20 that has done that in my, my, not my generation, but in my kind of friend group. And so it’s always important to consider that there’s, you’re not

to be most successful necessarily in the most popular role. Like Jeff said, these are all like highly intellectually stimulating roles with a different kind of flavor. So your personality might be best suited for one’s being in corporate banking for example. And that is going to be like where you succeed the most. And it’s going to be just as rewarding as any other career path.

It’s what’s right for you. Hopefully, this course can help people discover that.

Sebastian Taylor (15:06)
The one thing I would add, Meeyeon is that what this course really gives us also as a centerpiece to show all of our learners the new careers resources area in our LMS. So if you’re logging in to CFI for the first time, check out that Careers and Roles section on the left-hand side where you will find this

Careers in Finance course, but you’ll also find all sorts of other resources for your careers from interviews, tips, to role-specific learning paths and the career map that we spoke about earlier. So it really helps tie all those things together. So I’m excited about that.

Meeyeon (15:42)
And as a little side note, if you don’t know what LMS is, we’re just talking about your interface. When you log into CFI and you see that dashboard of what courses you’re taking, it’s called the learning management system, learning management software. But for our users, it’s just when you log in and see your dashboard.

I think that wraps it up for us. But one last opportunity if anyone wants to add anything in.

Jeff Schmidt (16:09)
One of the best parts is that it’s a free course.

Ryan (16:12)
That’s right. It is a free course, isn’t it? Which makes it such a powerful resource for all our CFI learners.

Meeyeon (16:24)
So come one, come all, we have no barriers to entry for this course. And we hope that you enjoy it. We hope that you love it. We hope that you are able to find something that you haven’t, you wanted to learn about. And we really hope it’s helpful.

Now, I’m not going to say goodbye as if this is like a real goodbye, because these are my real colleagues. I’m going to see Jeff in 10 minutes after this. 

Jeff Schmidt (16:41)
Ha-ha.

Meeyeon (16:42)
So we will say goodbye to everyone that’s listening. Thank you for tuning in.

Duncan McKeen (16:48)
Yeah.

Meeyeon (16:53)
Until next time, we’ll see you all later.

Ryan (16:56)
See you soon. Thanks, everyone.

Duncan McKeen (16:56)
Thanks, everyone.