How to Start a Career in Finance When You’re Unsure Which Job You Want

You can be interested in finance without knowing whether you want to advise clients, analyse investments, build banking technology or manage risk. The useful first decision is smaller: which kind of work would you like to try, and what would that experience help you learn?

To answer that, we brought together nine CareerFairy Live Streams with Julius Bär, LGT Capital Partners, BlackRock, UBS and Glencore. Their recruiters and employees described routes into very different corners of finance, including people who found their direction through internships and rotations.

The quick answer: choose a first role around work you want to understand, rather than a job title you expect to keep forever. Internships let you test a function; rotational programmes let you compare teams. Employers still expect a reason for choosing the specific opportunity, relevant foundations and a willingness to learn.

Which finance career paths should you explore first?

Start by separating the problems that different teams solve. A finance employer can contain investment, client, technology, legal, operational and corporate finance roles. Applying to the company tells a recruiter less than explaining why one of those problems interests you.

In its graduate conversations, Julius Bär described client-facing relationship management alongside investment products, portfolio management, finance, operations, legal, compliance and data roles. Its December 2025 session also distinguished investment advisory from wealth planning around clients’ wider life events.

BlackRock’s October 2025 conversation offered another broad map: investments, client and product work, operations, corporate functions, risk and quantitative analysis. An investment firm therefore does not offer only investment research jobs.

UBS made that point particularly clear in its April 2026 Group Functions session. Speakers discussed compliance technology, financial crime detection, model risk and assurance. Some of the work involved programming and data; some involved questioning whether models could be relied on in decisions.

Glencore’s September 2025 session added corporate finance and risk within a commodities business. That is a different setting from managing a private client’s wealth. The company’s commercial and corporate programmes were discussed separately, so do not treat a corporate finance vacancy as a trading role simply because both sit inside Glencore.

Our synthesis is to shortlist three kinds of work before shortlisting three employers. For example, you might compare interpreting investment information, explaining financial decisions to clients and improving how financial information is processed. Each gives you a different question to investigate.

How can you tell whether you prefer clients, analysis or technology?

Look for descriptions of the work between the impressive job titles. What does someone produce, who uses it and what makes it difficult?

In Julius Bär’s February 2026 session, a graduate compared work in Zurich with a discretionary investment team in Singapore. The Zurich experience involved using the bank’s information to advise clients; the Singapore team made portfolio decisions within its own investment universe. Those are related careers, but the daily interaction and decision-making differ.

In the March 2026 internship conversation, Julia described work in the CFO Office and a later graduate role within the CFO unit. Her tasks included recurring activities and projects. She also discussed Excel, summarising information and presenting it through PowerPoint. Her internship helped her identify the parts of the work she wanted to continue.

Another participant in that recording had moved from internship experience into machine learning engineering. His advice included understanding the constraints of a private bank and choosing pragmatic technology solutions. That is useful evidence if you like technical work but have assumed that a finance career requires becoming an investment specialist.

LGT Capital Partners offered a more investment-focused example. In its September 2026 private markets session, one employee explained that he had liked finance without initially knowing which area he wanted. Internships helped him explore before he joined the firm. Another speaker described work organised around private credit and customised investment solutions.

Write down what attracts you to each example. If your answer is only the employer’s reputation, you probably need more information. If you can name the tasks you want to try, you have a stronger basis for an application.

Is an internship the best way to choose a finance career?

An internship can be a useful experiment because it gives you evidence about the work, the team and your own preferences. It does not need to settle your entire career.

Julia’s Julius Bär example is especially concrete: she entered the CFO Office, learned about opportunities within the bank and then moved into a graduate role where she could do more of the work she had enjoyed. That is one person’s progression, rather than a promise that every intern receives a graduate offer.

The bank’s March 2026 session described a ten-week summer internship with real projects, learning sessions, mentorship and networking. That summer intake has passed. The practical lesson remains relevant: ask how much responsibility an internship includes and how you can learn beyond your immediate tasks.

LGT Capital Partners described spring, summer and autumn internship opportunities in its September 2026 recording. The speakers explained that timing could depend on existing interns and team needs. That matters if you are trying to fit an internship around university: check the actual vacancy instead of assuming every finance employer follows the same calendar.

BlackRock’s October 2025 session distinguished summer internships, longer off-cycle internships in continental Europe and insight events. Those were different routes for different study stages. The eligibility dates in that recording belong to that recruitment cycle; use the current employer listing for your own application.

Before accepting an internship, ask what you would be able to test. Will you see client work? Work with investment information? Build something? Talk to colleagues in adjacent teams? A short experience becomes more useful when you know the question it should answer.

Can a graduate programme help if you are still undecided?

Yes, but look closely at the type of flexibility it offers. Rotation does not necessarily mean you can try any job in the company.

Julius Bär’s December 2025 and February 2026 conversations described an eighteen-month programme with three rotations. The December session explained the difference between a focus track and a flex track. A focus track had rotations arranged around an intended professional direction; a flex track began with a first team and allowed further exploration within the programme.

That makes the distinction more useful than the word graduate. If you already know that you want to become a particular kind of specialist, focused development might suit you. If you are choosing between related functions, ask how the flexible track works and which decisions you actually control.

The September 2026 Julius Bär conversation also showed varied paths through business management, marketing, markets and machine learning. These examples illustrate the breadth of the bank; they do not mean every path is available in every intake.

BlackRock described a client and product rotational programme alongside its analyst route. Glencore described rotations within a chosen function. Their structures answer different questions: comparing client and product teams is different from deepening your understanding of finance inside one corporate function.

For a broader comparison of entry routes, see our guide to internships, trainee programmes and direct entry. When comparing programmes, ask about the first placement, later choices, business constraints and how the final role is found.

Do you need a finance degree to work in finance?

The answer depends on the role. The recordings showed a wider range of backgrounds than a finance-only route, but they also showed that specialist foundations matter.

UBS Group Functions speakers said they would ideally find both relevant technical skills and business knowledge. They recognised that this combination is difficult to find in a new graduate, and stressed a solid background that a team can build on, curiosity and proactive learning.

At Julius Bär, the graduate opportunities included data science, software engineering, legal and risk roles as well as client and investment work. A law applicant and a machine learning applicant would therefore be making different cases for their suitability.

The December 2025 session said that most of the opportunities discussed required a master’s degree, with some accepting a bachelor’s. That was programme-specific information at the time, not a universal requirement for finance jobs.

If you have a different degree, identify the overlap honestly. A technical project might demonstrate modelling or programming; a research project might show structured analysis; work with customers might show communication and responsibility. Then compare that evidence with the vacancy’s actual academic and experience requirements.

Do not replace a stated requirement with enthusiasm. Equally, do not reject every financial employer because your degree does not contain the word finance. The team and task are the better starting point.

What should you say in an application if you are unsure of your long-term role?

Explain why you want the next step, even if you are still exploring the step after that. You can show a clear direction without inventing certainty.

Julius Bär’s graduates recommended understanding how a private bank works before an interview. In the December 2025 conversation, they suggested speaking with people, using relevant student activities and learning the language of the field. The point was to demonstrate informed interest in the work.

UBS similarly encouraged candidates to ask questions and engage with the problem in a technical interview. Your curiosity becomes visible through what you have researched and what you want to understand further.

A useful application structure, based on those discussions, is: what interests you about this function; which experience gives you a starting point; what you want to learn through this opportunity. For a CFO internship, that might be analysing information and explaining it clearly. For compliance technology, it might be applying programming to a regulated business problem.

Use your own evidence. Do not present these examples as experiences you have had, and do not claim expertise simply because you have watched a recording. The purpose of research is to make your motivation more specific.

Our guide to what recruiters look for in graduates explains how to turn academic and other experience into stronger application evidence.

What should you do before your next finance application?

Use this practical sequence to turn uncertainty into a manageable shortlist.

Choose two or three functions you want to understand. Use the employer examples above to distinguish client, investment, corporate and technical work.
Read vacancies at your actual study stage. Separate internships from recent-graduate programmes and experienced positions.
Note the tasks, required foundations, languages and location in each listing. Julius Bär’s March session stressed that extra language requirements depended on the clients and market served.
Find one concrete example of your ability for each role. Explain your contribution and what you learned, rather than listing broad interests.
Prepare questions about the first projects, support, rotations and next-step options. Use interviews to assess the opportunity as well as demonstrate your interest.

You may discover that two roles both fit. That is a useful result. The aim is to make an informed first choice, then keep learning from actual work and colleagues.

Frequently asked questions about starting a finance career

Can I apply to finance jobs without knowing my final career path?

Yes. The recordings included people who clarified their preferences through internships and rotations. You should still explain why the specific team or programme interests you and what relevant foundations you bring.

Does working at a bank mean advising clients?

No. Julius Bär and UBS discussed technology, risk, compliance, operations and corporate roles alongside client work. Read the function’s responsibilities rather than assuming the employer’s main business describes every job.

Does a finance internship guarantee a graduate job?

No. Julia’s internship-to-graduate progression at Julius Bär shows a possible route, not a guaranteed outcome. Ask about the process and available roles, and assess the internship’s learning value on its own.

Are all rotational finance programmes equally flexible?

No. Julius Bär distinguished focused and flexible tracks, BlackRock discussed a client and product programme, and Glencore described rotations within functions. Ask exactly which placements you can choose.

Should I apply to investment roles or technology roles first?

Choose based on the work you want to test and the evidence in your application. The UBS and Julius Bär examples show technical routes inside finance; LGT Capital Partners and BlackRock illustrate investment-focused work. Neither is a universal starting point.

Want to compare the work directly? Explore CareerFairy Live Streams and ask employees what they do, what they learned in their first role and how they chose their next move.