Economics Jobs

gerry87

What do you all work as? What sort of jobs lend themselves to economics graduates? Aside from the few Banks, what other jobs look for economics students?

I'm in second year and I'm going to send out some CV's to places to try and get a summer job. But even after my degree, what sort of places should i be looking to? I'm finding it hard to think of places.

J.S. Pill

I works in a call centre me. Incidentally, I'm in the process of applying to train as an Economics teacher for next September. I don't have a degree in Economics as such, I've a degree in Public Administration and a masters in Politics but there was quite a lot of economics (in one form or another) involved in both. I seem to be eligible so far, I look forward to teaching kids all I know about curves...

The_Minister

Economics does not have a set career path, but it is looked upon quite well in business circles. Its not like a degree in philosophy which gets you bupkiss outside of what having any degree will get you.
It teaches you certain ways of looking at the world and evaluating options. The objectivity that economics gives you, (the cinema ticket experiment being the best) allows us see things in terms of ultimate cost and benefit, disregarding personal bias.

The Cinema experiment:
Two groups
1st told that they buy a €10 cinema ticket, then loose it. Do they by another?
Most say no.

2nd told that he loose €10 on the way to the cinema. Do they still buy a €10 ticket?
Most say yes.

The cost is the same, the benefit is the same. The first €10 is gone in both cases, it should not factor in a decision. An economist can see this.

J.S. Pill

gerry87 wrote:

I'm in second year and I'm going to send out some CV's to places to try and get a summer job. But even after my degree, what sort of places should i be looking to? I'm finding it hard to think of places.

Unless you're sh*t hot you can look forward to a boring glorified data entry job in a bank or an equally boring job in a call center. Of course the prosepctus for your course is going to imply otherwise. if you have a look at the graduate profile for your course a lot of people probably ended up in 'Banking' but that can cover jobs from economists to people who enter direct debit details into a computer all day (something I did for a bit last year). Sad but true. Enjoy college while you can mate.

J.S. Pill

The_Minister wrote:

It teaches you certain ways of looking at the world and evaluating options. The objectivity that economics gives you, (the cinema ticket experiment being the best) allows us see things in terms of ultimate cost and benefit, disregarding personal bias.

This exactly the sort of toss that prospectuses use to fool unsuspecting school leavers into applying for a place in their courses so the university can increase its capitation grant!!! Oh sure, having a degree in Economics/Politics/European Studies will make you more employable but they neglect to mention that its going to be banks and call centers that are the main source of demand.

If you want money and some vague feeling of self worth the professions are the way to go, do the law exams and put Freidman back in your bookshelf to be read at a later date.

Running Bing

J.S. pill what are you basing this on? you said you dont have a degree in economics so how are you so informed on the matter? Is this your own experience or do you know a few economics student who had this experience. Theres quite a lot of maths in my economics degree but that doesnt mean I have a degree in maths by any means. You also say "the professions" are the way to go. So what everyone should just become doctors and lawyers(oh and btw a law degree isnt even a prerequisite to become a lawyer and accountacy firms hire a lot of people with backgrounds in economics).

Maybe you should stick to given advice to people looking for career prospects after degree's in Public Administration and masters degrees in Politics. Just out of interest J.S. Pill(and I'll fully understand if you dont want to answer this) but what college are your degrees from?

J.S. Pill

Babybing wrote:

J.S. pill what are you basing this on? you said you dont have a degree in economics so how are you so informed on the matter? Is this your own experience or do you know a few economics student who had this experience. Theres quite a lot of maths in my economics degree but that doesnt mean I have a degree in maths by any means. You also say "the professions" are the way to go. So what everyone should just become doctors and lawyers(oh and btw a law degree isnt even a prerequisite to become a lawyer and accountacy firms hire a lot of people with backgrounds in economics).

Maybe you should stick to given advice to people looking for career prospects after degree's in Public Administration and masters degrees in Politics. Just out of interest J.S. Pill(and I'll fully understand if you dont want to answer this) but what college are your degrees from?

Granted my evidence is only anecdotal - In case I didn't mention it before, yes I do know quite a few former economics students doing sh!t jobs as well as one who is doing very well for himself. I've been working sh!t jobs for a year and a half now and I've come across a lot of graduates from a multiplicity of degrees in the same position. As I mentioned, looking at graduate profiles to determine how well different graduates are doing can be very problematic as the career areas are usually very broadly defined; not to mention the fact that a university will want to give the impression that its graduates are doing very well.
I'm really speaking about social science graduates as a whole and I totally accept your point about giving advice to "people looking for career prospects after degree's in Public Administration and masters degrees in Politics". However, I think I'm quite justified at lumping economics graduates in with this group - Economics is afterall a social science discipline and most people who take economics take it as part of a multidisciplinary degree. True, it is probably looked at more favorably in business circles that a Philosophy degree as The_Minister said (I think having a degree in Philosophy says a lot about a person...) but for many people, entry level banking jobs where they'll never use their knowledge of economics again is what awaits.

Can we at least agree that among social science graduates Economics may be at the upper echelons in terms of employability?? If there are any more factors which you think set economics graduates apart from this grouping please let us know.

Can I ask what you're doing at the moment Babybing (student?Graduate?). Perhaps you can share some Economics graduates success stories in case I've overly disheartened anyone. - Thanks

____ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______

Yes, last time I checked my calfskins did not say 'Economics'. When I mentioned that I had done quite a bit of economics over the years it was in the context of my eligibility to teach the subject.

And to answer your question: BA is from UL, MA is from UCD

Running Bing

Okay I kinda have a better idea of where your coming from now, but in my opinion and experiences of talking with people in the know in this day and age degree discipline isnt of huge importance. If your good you'll get a good job if your average the sad truth of the matter is that theres just too many people with degrees now(btw J.S. dont think for a second im applying that to you personally, after all I know nothing about you and you must be doing something right to land a job teaching the subject). Its not like years ago when you got a degree and that was that, you were set. My point is that people in economics have just as good job prospects as anybody doing business or science or law or engineering. And as for an economics degree only "probably" being looked at more favourably in business circles than a philosophy degree, that may be true if its a highly theoretical ec. degree but if it has a large quantative element(which my degree does) it is definately more beneficial. Basically an economics degree can be very qualitive i.e. social sciency or it can be very quantative and relevant to finance i.e. mathsy so a lot has to do with subject choices within the degree. Also dont forget that economics is the basis for all business subjects (accountancy is just applied economics), it gives you a knowledge of the workings off financial markets and makes you very employable in all financial institutions be it investment management, banking, accountancy or economics consultancies(not to mention it is much more established and respected than other social science degrees and it gives you the skills to approach problem solving activities in a very logical way. These last two points cannot really be proven so you can discount those but I believe them to be fair assumptions). All of this makes it worlds apart from other social science degrees like sociology and political science and makes economics graduates just as attractive as grads from other disciplines.



Im in the third year of a four year degree at the moment and its only now that I realise how little an impact your degree discipline has on the job you do after college. Imo the best way to land a job after college is to get onto a good graduate program from a good company and your personality and the skills you learned in college are much more important for that than your degree subject.

Waltons

I'd be very interested to hear what people who have studied Economics are now doing job-wise, as I'm currently in 2nd year Economics (joint major with Computer Science) and don't really know much about specific job avenues (if any) that come with having an economics degree.
It is quite disheartening to see J.S mentioning about many graduates working in less than ideal jobs, and I guess that Babybing is right in that you'll probably reap rewards if you're good at what you do. Hopefully this will make me strive towards being the best that I can be

So far, our course has been a bit of a mix of general micro/macro, with a bit of maths (Introduction to Quantitative methods, and Statistics for economics), although the micro this year has been a lot more maths oriented than last.
I enjoy both sides of the course equally, and I'm not really sure if I want to (or if it would be beneficial to) focus on either side more than the other. Can anybody help guide this lost soul?

Its quite simple really:

Get a good 2:1 or a first in any degree and you will get called to interviews - it won't guarentee you the job, but it will get you in the door.

Get lower then that.. you'd better know someone high up in the firm..

keynesian

I'm a Credit Controllor in a car sales firm, well thats what it says when I'm writing e-mails. I also do costomer service, reception clover and genral accounts. I work for & with nice people, one of my colleagues has a masters in psyco something from UCD. I get 22k a year, which for a guy starting off is good with no degree.

For the most part, I enjoy economic (macro) thats why I'm in this forum. I did start BESS in TCD but due to, what you much have notice, is Dislexa, I was fight a lossing battle. I wont start a wrat about inifissionsy and incomitacy of TCD learning support. {oh wait, I just did}

I'm interested in this thread caz I may still go back to uni to study economics. I do have the option of returning next year, to TCD or spend my money else where. But perhaps find a new job with more scope from promotion is a better option.

J.S. Pill

Babybing wrote:

Its not like years ago when you got a degree and that was that, you were set.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the mindset my parents seem to be stuck in. They weren't too annoyed when I hung around Dublin doing sh!t jobs for a year after I graduated; they just figured I needed time to decide what I wanted to do. But when I announced I was moving down to Cork to do the same thing for the forseeable future they started hounding me to get off my ass and get a real job. I am at absolute pains to explain to them that things have changed since their days and but this just seems to be completely beyond their comprehension. I'd like a real job I tell them, but there are too many graduates chasing too few decent jobs

Babybing wrote:

but if it has a large quantative element(which my degree does) it is definately more beneficial. Basically an economics degree can be very qualitive i.e. social sciency or it can be very quantative and relevant to finance i.e. mathsy so a lot has to do with subject choices within the degree. Also dont forget that economics is the basis for all business subjects (accountancy is just applied economics), it gives you a knowledge of the workings off financial markets and makes you very employable in all financial institutions be it investment management, banking, accountancy or economics consultancies...Imo the best way to land a job after college is to get onto a good graduate program from a good company and your personality and the skills you learned in college are much more important for that than your degree subject.

Very important point. I guess this is what may set a degree in economics apart from a degree in Politics/sociology/whatever. The mathsy degrees seem to be well suited to the graduate programs on offer in banks and financial institutions (at least the ones I've heard of). The social sciency approach is invariably found in interdisciplinary degrees. One of my cousins did BESS in trinity (which seems to follow the social sciency route as opposed to the matsy route) followed by a postgrad from LSE and last I heard she's doing teaching.

Perhaps someone can offer some advise about graduate training programs to counterbalance all my doom and gloom:mad:

original_psycho wrote:

Its quite simple really:

Get a good 2:1 or a first in any degree and you will get called to interviews - it won't guarentee you the job, but it will get you in the door.

I got firsts in both my undergrad and masters - I went to see a jobs facilitator in a FAS office once, he told me that having the such 'qualifications' may work against me when I'm trying to get a sh!t job as employers might assume that I'm too bright and ambitious to stay around too long!!! - so long as I got to pay rent I'll stick around...

Running Bing

J.S. Pill wrote:

One of my cousins did BESS in trinity (which seems to follow the social sciency route as opposed to the matsy route)

Couldnt be further from the truth. Check the bess website, the amount of quantative courses in third and fourth year is quite large.

J.S. Pill wrote:

followed by a postgrad from LSE and last I heard she's doing teaching.

Is that what she wanted to do? LSE is one of the highest regarded schools in the world and its graduates are highly sought after.

J.S. Pill wrote:

I got firsts in both my undergrad and masters

I really cant understand this. What jobs did you go for? Who exactly do you think are getting all these jobs if someone with a 1st in a ba and master degrees from ucd and someone with a masters from LSE cant get them? Maybe you left it to late applying?

I know a number of people who graduated the LSE with good 2:1s and first and are now flying it in London.

A point being missed here is one that I said earlier:
A good degree will only get you in the door of the interview, as you so rightly say there is a large number of people with good degrees.

You have to be able to close the deal yourself - so if you are not getting any good offers with what seems to be a good degree then you are doing something wrong in the interview, or you are applying for the wrong jobs.

J.S. Pill

Babybing wrote:

Couldnt be further from the truth. Check the bess website, the amount of quantative courses in third and fourth year is quite large.

So it is...

Babybing wrote:

Is that what she wanted to do? LSE is one of the highest regarded schools in the world and its graduates are highly sought after.

I don't know man, I haven't spoken to her for almost 2 years. She could be a high flyer now for all I know. Must find out what exactly she did in LSE too, never know, it could have been something self indulgent like poststructural femminism.

Babybing wrote:

I really cant understand this. What jobs did you go for? Who exactly do you think are getting all these jobs if someone with a 1st in a ba and master degrees from ucd and someone with a masters from LSE cant get them? Maybe you left it to late applying?

Who do I think is getting all these jobs? I think the point is that there are too many graduates going after too few decent jobs. I'm blue in the face from trying to explain this to my parents. Jobs like research assistants get hundreds upon hundreds of applications (according to a friend of mine who works in admin in trinity). Last year I applied for 3 research jobs (1 of which I knew I had no chance of getting) and didn't even get so much as an application acknowledgment from any of them, I applied for 2 'real' administration jobs in the semi-state sector too, got interviewed for 1. Moving to Cork has all but killed my chances of getting a 'real' job anytime soon but screw it, I'm happy here.

I could tell you what type of jobs my class from UCD ended up in but then we'd be totally digressing from the original topic. Lets return to economics graduates. As Babybing pointed out the type of economics you do largely determines your employability - maybe our OP should take this into account when picking his subjects for next year.

Time Magazine

J.S. Pill wrote:

Must find out what exactly she did in LSE too, never know, it could have been something self indulgent like poststructural femminism.

Bingo? .

Tricity Bendix

The only economics graduate I know is currently doing NAV work for citigroup, earning silly money considering he has only been working two years. He did his degree and masters in Trinity.

Oh, he was also asked to run for a political party in the next elections, so there's another possible career for yis.

nesf

J.S. Pill wrote:

Very important point. I guess this is what may set a degree in economics apart from a degree in Politics/sociology/whatever. The mathsy degrees seem to be well suited to the graduate programs on offer in banks and financial institutions (at least the ones I've heard of).

Tbh, economics has very little math when compared to any "maths" degree like finance, physics, applied maths etc (from the perspective of someone presently studying economics after studying physics/applied maths). It's not a whole lot different to any other arts degree unless you are particularily good at it, as said above by someone.


Not that there's anything wrong with an Arts degree. It's more that unless you are doing a "professional" degree like engineering or medicine then you can't really expect there to be a direct career path waiting for you after college. In economics terms, there is a huge oversupply of degree holders in this country so you've got to do something else to differentiate yourself from the teeming masses; a masters, high degree marks, professional qualifications, etc are all means of doing this. Just have a read through the dozens of threads from IT grads bitching about how they are stuck in call centers over on Work/Jobs for example.

keynesian

Like nesf said this is being discussed over at the jobs forum.

eclectichoney

well actually nesf depending on the subjects/courses you choose, an econ degree can be very quantitative. for example in my final year (same applied in 3rd year also) you could have taken quants, financial markets, and a macro/micro course with quite a mathematical component. Certainly the maths involved could equal a finance degree, tho obviously nothing like a maths or eng degree, and there can be a lot of relatively high end stat work. However it is possible though to do an econ degree without taking many maths courses though, so i take your point in some cases, it all depends on the route you go down tbh, so you can't really generalise, especially when you're just doing a single honours econ degree rather than joint honours/arts type.

Obvious places for a grad would be maybe as an RA with the ESRI, or goodbodys/davys take on economic consultants at grad level reasonably regularly. I'm an econ grad and I work in the economic division of D/Finance, so there are economicsy jobs out there

Time Magazine

Thanks for input, nesf.

keynesian wrote:

Like nesf said this is being discussed over at the jobs forum.

That's true but this is particularly relevant to this forum as many of us are studying economics and would rather have this discussion confined to economics here than hear about other jobs (no offence to other jobs). Open to suggestions though .

electrichoney, I take it you did BESS?

Would anyone be willing to actually divulge information as to how much money economics graduates are looking at (if successful in gaining employment) when they enter the real world? I read in my Careers Advisory Guide that AIB/BOI/Ulster Bank grads start on ~€27,000. I presume the non-consumer banks pay more?

eclectichoney

i did indeed (for my sins )
I reckon any grad job isn't gonna pay much more than the 27-30k mark. TBh I'd consider that a v good salary for a 'just out of college' job.

Also the CboI were looking for grads a few weeks ago too - see, lots of jobs!

nesf

eclectichoney wrote:

well actually nesf depending on the subjects/courses you choose, an econ degree can be very quantitative. for example in my final year (same applied in 3rd year also) you could have taken quants, financial markets, and a macro/micro course with quite a mathematical component. Certainly the maths involved could equal a finance degree, tho obviously nothing like a maths or eng degree, and there can be a lot of relatively high end stat work. However it is possible though to do an econ degree without taking many maths courses though, so i take your point in some cases, it all depends on the route you go down tbh, so you can't really generalise, especially when you're just doing a single honours econ degree rather than joint honours/arts type.

From looking over the modules offered here and textbooks I don't see any high-end stats work until masters level tbh. (I could be defining high-end different to you though and outside of a 3 year Arts degree it could be very different in that sometimes it seems like MA's are really the 4th year of the degree if you know what I mean). I should have been clearer about the fact that I was referring to arts though, apologies for that. Finance grads (again from what I've seen) seem to get a better grounding outside of statistics.

I suppose what is running through my head is that for a lot of economics grads, would they be better off doing a straight stats degree or a maths/stats degree? If they are just doing it for the quant abilities then would it be better not to take the economics route? (I thinking here from a purely work skills point of view)


I wasn't suggesting moving this thread to Work/Jobs btw, I think it's better off here for a degree specific perspective. I think that the discussion would be fundamentally different in the two forums tbh and personally I'd be more interested in reading the one here. Though if the OP wants to create a second thread in Work/Jobs for a more "workplace" perspective then they should feel free.

Running Bing

eclectichoney wrote:

Also the CboI were looking for grads a few weeks ago too - see, lots of jobs!

I imagine the moolah in the central bank isnt as good as in other places though? Any ideas of how it progresses as you move up the ladder? I imagine after a few years in the central bank you'd be well set for a job with a top company though.

This is actually a really useful thread. Maybe it could even be stickied and people could add advice from time to time or post up positions in economics they've come across(That may violate some rules or get messy though). I dont know just an idea.

europerson

I'm sure the CB pays as well as a lot of the private companies. The CSO take on economics graduates too, especially for statistics jobs in their new Swords office.

eclectichoney

I agree that a stats/econ joing honours is probably the best combination, but i wouldn't say purely maths. I mean economics isn't just messing with the numbers as an end in itself, it's generally as a means to evaluating policy options and choices, so in that sense you definitely need a broader view and some background in terms of how to approach problems that general macro/micro courses give. Doing quite a quants based masters on top of a general econ degree would give a good basis i'd imagine.

nesf

eclectichoney wrote:

I agree that a stats/econ joing honours is probably the best combination, but i wouldn't say purely maths. I mean economics isn't just messing with the numbers as an end in itself, it's generally as a means to evaluating policy options and choices, so in that sense you definitely need a broader view and some background in terms of how to approach problems that general macro/micro courses give. Doing quite a quants based masters on top of a general econ degree would give a good basis i'd imagine.

Very true, I don't view economics as just a course in number crunching personally (not that there's anything wrong with a purely quant degree or anything). It's more that from a workplace point of view that a lot of economics grads seem to be employed for their quant skills alone and that it is only the upper few that actually find employment where their "economics skills" (in the broader sense) are the primary reason for their employment.

Though, I think you make a very important point at the end. econ + masters quant would be very strong imho, and it kind of comes back to the trend at the moment: people seem to be defined less by their degree subject and more by their chosen masters topic. I find it kind of troubling tbh. 3rd level is looking more and more like the LC...

Waltons

nesf wrote:

Though, I think you make a very important point at the end. econ + masters quant would be very strong imho, and it kind of comes back to the trend at the moment: people seem to be defined less by their degree subject and more by their chosen masters topic. I find it kind of troubling tbh. 3rd level is looking more and more like the LC...

Unfortunately, I suppose it's inevitable that things will go this way when there are a high number of people with degrees.
I would be guessing that a masters with quants would be a good route to pursue if one has the mind for it. I know certainly in my own class in college it seems that more people have difficulty grasping quant aspects of the course, so I'd imagine it's a good way to not only give yourself skills relevant to a field in which you're interested, but also to help you stand out from the crowd.

DublinEvents

Economics is a pretty tough subject. I for one had no liking for it and it irked me to the extreme. But then again, I also don't have a four year degree so I guess academic accomplishments are not for me. I just wish there was something I could do that didn't involve stressing my brain cells

nesf

Waltons wrote:

Unfortunately, I suppose it's inevitable that things will go this way when there are a high number of people with degrees.
I would be guessing that a masters with quants would be a good route to pursue if one has the mind for it.

That's my belief also.

Waltons wrote:

I know certainly in my own class in college it seems that more people have difficulty grasping quant aspects of the course, so I'd imagine it's a good way to not only give yourself skills relevant to a field in which you're interested, but also to help you stand out from the crowd.

Yeah it's the same in mine. Frankly, I found it quite suprising. I thought that in a relatively mathematical subject like economics that the level of maths amoung the students in general would be higher. Then, I also expected the maths courses to be more demanding (ie the level of maths and the "speed" of the lectures is a lot slower than I expected) also and I've a strong feeling that the two are fairly strongly linked. People with strong mathematical skills seem to be in the minority from what I've seen.

damnyanks

You can go into corporate banking, capital markets, research, advisory, consultancy.

If you want to leverage your economics degree properly go over to london or edinburgh. They have lots of big financial institutes.

From what I've seen any decent finance companies in Dublin are just there as its a tax haven. Only fund accountant jobs in Dublin.