Gen Z is looking for a job in finance, with security and high salaries

If you’ve been on TikTok in the past month, you’ve likely heard it. An anthem listing the traits of an ideal partner: “I’m looking for a man in finance. Trust fund. 6′5. Blue eyes.” Posted by 26-year-old content creator Megan Boni, the 19-second clip has raked in 3.2 million likes, 195,000 shares and spawned countless renditions – some of which have already made it to dance clubs.

Boni has clarified the video is a satire, but go down the rabbit hole of #financeguy, #financecareers or #financegirlie on TikTok, and you’ll see real videos of twentysomethings glamourizing a job in finance: stylish corporate fits, 80-hour work weeks and overpriced desk lunches. In the comment sections, a chorus of questions asking how much they make, how to get a job in finance and if they should invest in crypto.

These videos also offer a window into a lifestyle that’s seemingly untouched by student debt, rising rents or the phrase “cost of living.” So, it’s not surprising that a growing number of Gen Z – a generation that survived remote high school, graduated into a world of high interest rates and crushing inflation, and were told they’ll never afford a house and won’t retire until their 70s – would aspire to careers with high salaries and relative job security.

Finance became the most desirable and stable industry to work in among students aged 18 to 25 in 2023, according to a report by CFA Institute (a move up from fifth place in 2021).

Drishti Thakkar, a 26-year-old MBA student at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and a current corporate banking intern at one of Canada’s big five banks, says what made finance appealing to her is the variety of work and how even as a student, you can hit the ground running and learn on the job. But, of course, there’s also the money. “One of the drivers for a career in finance is the fact that there’s a correlation between the amount of work that you’re putting in and the compensation that you get out of it,” Thakkar says.

While work-life balance is still Canadian postsecondary students’ top career priority, “maximizing my income” is the second, up from fifth in 2019, according to survey by consulting firm Brainstorm Strategy Group.

Finance offers some lucrative entry-level salaries. The average for a financial analyst is $68,000, an investment banking analyst is $80,000 and an actuary, who is responsible for assessing financial risk for insurance companies, is nearly $90,000. For postsecondary students, a four-month summer internship at one of Canada’s big banks nets around $30,000, or $90,000 annualized. On top of that, some salaried positions offer bonuses and variable compensation, which is extra pay based on results.

24-year-old Luke Jagielski also studied finance because of the salary and recently started a job in marketing and sales at an asset management group in Toronto. Now that he’s learned more about what kind of work he can do in finance, the main appeal for him is the variety of opportunities available. “It’s not gonna be like you show up one day and it’s going to be the same routine task.”

Jagielski believes another factor in the surge of interest in finance is the perceived cachet that comes with the job. “A lot of people just love to say, ‘I work in finance.’ There’s a lot of ego.” In the eyes of Gen Z, media portrayals of finance jobs, in movies such as The Wolf of Wall Street, The Big Short, HBO’s Industry and Showtime’s Billions, play into making the field glamorous.

In the last 15 years as a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, Jan Bena has also seen how social media and the gamification of finance, like stock market simulators and trading apps, has influenced his students. “This was a generation that grew up fully with the internet and mobile phones. And the financial industry has been very pro-active in reaching that population through those channels,” Bena says. “Financial news is more accessible and therefore they are more exposed to it from a younger and younger age.”

Case in point: Meihuan Yu, an 18-year-old Grade 12 student in Markham, Ont., says she first became interested in finance at 15 after she started a small business teaching online arts classes for kids during the pandemic. After finding the jargon of sites like Investopedia difficult to parse, she turned to social media for financial advice and found a group of like-minded teens on Instagram.

“I know a lot of my peers, we’ve talked about how living costs are rising but as a generation, we’ve just never been really exposed to financial literacy,” Yu says, who will be studying business at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in August. Social media, Yu says, has also influenced her peers to research careers in finance.

“When you’re scrolling through TikTok or Reels, you see people making memes of the finance bro, who is this very confident man who is really rich and dresses a certain way. I think even as a joke, it influences our generation. Even if it doesn’t cast it in a fully positive light, it brings attention to it and then you’ll go look into it a bit more.”