Fidelity Graduate Opportunities

What programme is right for you?

This is a question which will never have a clear cut answer and why there are so many careers advisors in the world. It also has to be your decision at the end of the day as you will be the person committing to starting a career in that area.

However hopefully we have provided some helpful advice below so you can start looking in the right areas.

Once you've decided that investment management is for you, take a look at your skills. Have you got the necessary skill set for the programme you are applying for? You can do this by reading the programme descriptions and speaking to people in the industry to find out more about the particular business area you wish to apply for.

For Investment you have to be extremely analytical, like working with numbers and often working independently. As an Associate or Analyst you won’t be the person speaking with clients, instead you clients are the Portfolio Mangers you have to pitch your ideas to. Your communication will be with company management, external analysts and industry experts so you need to be a confident communicator. In essence you will be doing research so you need to like analysing data and writing up reports.

For Sales & Marketing this is the external client facing area. You have to be someone who likes building relationships and developing partnerships. We look for strong presentation and communication skills. You also need to be analytical as you need to be able to understand the performance of our products and developing new and existing markets. Can you be someone thrown into a room of people you don’t know and be happy to network and seek out new contacts? We do look for some creative thinking so how good are you at developing ideas on the spot.

For both Business Operations and Investment Management Operations these are both more team orientated areas. They are more closely aligned with leadership style programmes as they are aimed at development people managers and leaders with a general understanding of the business rather than technical specialists. We tend to look for people who are more all-rounders – team players, good communicators and problem solvers. The main difference between Business Operations and Investment Management Operations is that Business Operations is more client focussed. You are dealing with new and existing customers, queries, solving problems and process improvement. Investment Management Operations is working directly with the Investment team (Portfolio Managers, Traders and Analysts) so your clients are internal. It is more numbers driven and understanding the underlying assets we hold.

Hopefully this has given you some pointers to get started on working out what programme is right for you.

Choosing a programme

What programme is right for you?