Introduction

OCOB college’s overall mission is to prepare career-ready, global business leaders through hands-on discovery and application. A consequence of this mission is to produce employable undergraduates. I conducted a GAP analysis to determine if the OCOB curriculum teaches relevant skills that will make an undergraduate career-ready. The GAP analysis is one component of the overall study UPC undertakes when evaluating programs and concentrations.

In this document, I focus on the finance concentration. To perform the analysis, I scrape all jobs on indeed.com. To manage the search, I scrape for American jobs with the four keywords:

  1. financial analyst

  2. investment banking

  3. portfolio manager

  4. corporate finance

An example of a search page is here. Then for each job, I note the company, job title, location, and job description. From the listing, I also develop a flag indicating whether a job is remote or not.

In total, I scraped 2745 listings. Table 1 shows the first three listings. From the data, I answer a few questions that is relevant for the GAP analysis.
Table 1: This table shows an example of three listings. I do not show the description for expositional clarity
Company Location RemoteFlag Zipcode Title
Vanderbilt University Medical Center 2525 West End Ave, Nashville, TN 37203 No 37203 Sr Financial Analyst
Commonwealth Care Alliance 30 Winter St FL 12, Boston, MA 02108 No 02108 Strategic Finance Analyst
Discover 2500 Lake Cook Rd, Riverwoods, IL 60015 No 60015 Lead Financial Analyst

Question 1: What are the most common titles?

Figure 1: The left panel shows the most frequent job titles for all jobs; the right panel shows the titles for only remote jobs.

Figure 1: The left panel shows the most frequent job titles for all jobs; the right panel shows the titles for only remote jobs.

Figure 1 shows the starting position demanded by most jobs in America. In finance, the most common job title is a financial analyst. The term is synonymous with finance analyst. Financial analysis, financial planning, and corporate finance are the most common jobs. I found the right panel concerning remote jobs interesting as they focus more on tax.

Question 2: where are the jobs?

Figure 2: The plot shows the most frequent location of jobs.

Figure 2: The plot shows the most frequent location of jobs.

Figure 2 shows the location of most finance jobs. Most jobs are location in New York as expected — they are not in California

Question 3: what other skills do finance jobs ask for?

Figure 3: The plot shows the most associated words with the word degree. The plot gives a sense of what degrees are most sought after along with finance.

Figure 3: The plot shows the most associated words with the word degree. The plot gives a sense of what degrees are most sought after along with finance.

Figure 3 shows the words that are most associated with the word degree. For example, in a job description, the word degree often follows the word bachelors. The sentence reflects the minimum education requirements for the job. Figure 3 shows that finance jobs often require both accounting and economics skills.

Question 4: what are the most important job functions for a finance job?

Figure 4: The plot shows the most associated words with the word skills. The plot gives a sense of the finance job tasks.

Figure 4: The plot shows the most associated words with the word skills. The plot gives a sense of the finance job tasks.

Table 2: This table answers a few questions related to skills
Comments Proportion
What percentage of jobs require Excel or Microsoft Suite familiarity? 75%
What percentage of jobs ask for good communication skills? 80%
What percentage of jobs require Data Visualization? 11%
What percentage of jobs require Python? 3%
What percentage of jobs require Non Python programming skills? 7%
What percentage of jobs require knowledge of Factset or Bloomberg? 3%

Figure 4 shows the most commonly associated words with the word “skills”. Here are three observations. By far, communication (measured by words oral, written, communication, writing, strong, verbal) is the most desired skill. Second, working well in teams (measured by terms such as organization, interpersonal) is also important. Lastly, the most popular skills require students to analyze and create models using Excel and PowerPoint.

Table 2 is more interesting. What percentage of jobs require Python? To answer this question, I create a dummy variable if the job description includes the word Python. A mere 3% of jobs ask for Python skills, while 7% call for programming skills like Matlab, SAS, or STATA. Consistent with Figure 4, 80% of job descriptions contain some language related to communication, and 75% of jobs demand Excel skills. Last, note that only 3% of jobs require knowledge of financial databases like Factset or Bloomberg.