Candidates Pay Attention! Finance Skill Requirements Are Changing Fast

It’s no secret that technology is having a significant impact on every industry. However, its evolution is impacting some quicker than others, and finance is at the top of the list. According to World Economic Forum research, skill requirements are changing fastest in finance, with 43% of survey respondents stating that skills are changing within their industry.

“Finance jobs… seem to be undergoing a radical overhaul as new technology takes hold,” says Anne VanderMey on Fortune.

This trend is also common for all other industries. “Over a third of the core skill sets in most jobs will be replaced by new ones by 2020,” adds VanderMey.

Top Trends Impacting the Finance Industry

There are a number of key drivers of change that are having a big impact on the finance industry. They include:

• Big data and processing power (44%)
• The middle class in emerging markets (41%)
• Mobile internet, cloud technology (41%)
• The changing nature of how work is done (26%)

These top drivers of change are already having an impact on employee skills requirements. Failure to adopt and add these new skills to your resume could hurt your career progression.

Key Skill Sets in the Coming Years

With these new factors in play, current and future finance and accounting professionals will have to add new skills to their portfolio to keep up with industry changes. Top skills that will be in demand in the coming years (by 2020) include:

• Complex problem solving
• Programming and other technical skills
• Logical reasoning
• Critical thinking and more focus on process skills
• Creativity and more emphasis on cognitive abilities

Key Barriers to Ramping Up

Even though there is awareness of key changes occurring in finance, barriers still exist. The biggest barriers to change include:

• Lack of understanding of disruptive changes
• Workplace and innovation strategy misalignment
• Pressure to maintain/increase profitability
• Resource constraints
• Lack of prioritization by leadership

Many of these barriers can be overcome by focusing on strategies such as skills coaching and training, job rotation, collaboration with academic institutions, apprenticeships, and targeting foreign and female talent.

The finance industry is rapidly evolving. Taking change seriously is important to ensure you have the desired skills and abilities to be an attractive talent today and for years to come.

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