This first installment in a series of upcoming Alumni Q&A’s gives students insight into the potential outcomes of the majors offered through the university’s Bachelor of Business Administration degree. I interviewed a recent UFV grad who is now in their respective field, discussing studies and their leap into the job market and what sort of things they experienced. This week I spoke with Matthew Kidwell, a recent UFV graduate who pursued finance, one of the UFV BBA majors, and who is now working in the field at RBC Phillips, Hager & North Investment Counsel Inc. in Vancouver.
What pushed you toward the field of finance?
Good question, I was working at Coast Capital Savings at the time, and I was deciding between accounting and finance. I always had a passion for numbers and technical work, but I found with finance I was able to work with clients more, and what really then solidified my decision was doing the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) undergraduate research project. That was in my fourth year at UFV, and after doing that project I definitely knew I wanted to pursue the CFA and pursue the finance route.
Tell me a little about the CFA undergraduate research project.
What it is, is CFA Vancouver holds an undergraduate research challenge for all of British Columbia. Each university has the option to put a team together for that, and what you do is submit a formal report, and follow up with a presentation about a month or two later. Both of those are graded and you’re judged based on different components of the report and presentation. Which was a really cool experience because you have to valuate a company. We did Whistler Blackcomb, and we got to present to a bunch of CFAs and it was a really, really good experience going through the full valuation process from beginning to end, presenting, and kind of giving a pitch on why you should buy, hold, or sell this company.
What sort of challenges did you have in the undergraduate degree at UFV?
Challenges I would say for the first one to three-ish years, specifically year two, was really trying to figure out what do I do. There are so many options in society nowadays, which is great, right, because you can really do whatever you want, but the problem is what do you want to do? It is really trying to find what I had a passion for learning; at the start I didn’t get that good of grades, because I didn’t care as much about what I was learning, but once I kinda found my niche, really actually enjoyed what I was studying, that’s when things turned the corner for me and it all kind of clicked.
What was your experience with finding a job after graduation?
It was pretty straight forward for me, I worked in university so I already had about two to three years of somewhat industry-related experience. I worked part-time at Coast Capital as a financial advisor/service rep, so then for me to kind of network and eventually make the jump to Philip Hager & North, I was able to do that given my experience and resume. It’s not easy, but if you keep up with networking and applying and not giving up and really honing in on where you want to work and what you want to do, you can definitely do that.
Are there any specific networking events or networking methods that would apply better to finance students?
Yeah that’s a really good question, that’s one thing I found very hard in finance. At the time when I was at UFV there weren’t too many finance-related events. There was a lot of accounting events, and I guess I could say I was a little bit jealous, because all these accounting kids are getting all these cool networking events — I don’t know if you’d call them cool, but opportunities I should say. It was a challenge for me because I had to create my own networking events and try and get my face in front of as many people as possible. Once I decided I wanted to work in downtown Vancouver (I felt that was the best place for opportunities), that’s when I really started networking and going to other places, trying to meet as many people as I can, using LinkedIn, kind of creating my own job interviews. So it is really making a name for myself and not being afraid to put myself out there in that sense.
What are some aspects of the job you expected when entering the workforce vs. some aspects you didn’t think were going to be present?
I thought perhaps it might be a little bit more technical-based in terms of research and what not, but most of our research is third party, through Global Asset Management which is part of RBC. A lot of our research is relayed on to them, so I am not doing as much technical research as I thought I would be. Which is okay; on the flip side of things I did realize how important other areas that I learned in university would be, such as taxes. Taxes is a big thing in my area: tax planning, tax returns, everything like that. A lot of the times I have questions about that. That’s probably one of the things I took for granted in university, was taking tax class and not thinking I would have to apply it, but here I am using it even today for example. So there you go.
Why should a student pursue finance?
Oh, that’s the million-dollar question. I think for finance, if they really like that background, that technical background, that research, you have that ability to do that research. Also if you like working with the public, if you like giving presentations, finance also has that ability too. The other aspect is if you like programming you can go into finance too, right. There are so many different paths that choose finance, that it really fits any kind of personality and what that person really enjoys. Whereas me, I enjoy giving presentations and I enjoy research so those kind of co-merit together. I guess I really wanted to do accounting, I liked it, but I thought finance offered me more, more opportunities, so that’s why I went down that road.
