Financial Services

One of the most exciting trends in fintech is the way the industry is changing the payments landscape. In the past, making a payment usually meant going to the bank and withdrawing cash or writing a check.

Lesley Pickens is a business service officer in Morgan Stanley’s Wealth Management Field Service team. This team partners with Morgan Stanley’s financial advisors to carry out a consistent client experience and help clients achieve their goals.

Today, many leading banking and consulting firms are committed to making diversity and inclusion a priority in recruiting, empowering, and retaining talent. In fact, some of the world's top banking and consulting firms are now heavily investing in resources and initiatives to further the hiring, developing, and promoting of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Today, we're excited to release our 2023 Vault Accounting 25, ranking of the best accounting firms to work for. The ranking is based on a survey of more than 9,700 accounting professionals, who were asked to rate their firms in several workplace categories, including benefits, compensation, culture, diversity, hours, satisfaction, training, wellness offerings, work/life balance, and more.

On Friday, February 11, Firsthand held its first annual MBA Virtual Career Fair. The Fair was geared toward first- and second-year MBA students looking to prepare for and find internships and full-time positions.

Today, we're excited to release our 2022 Banking 25, a ranking of the best investment banking firms to work for in North America. The ranking is based on a survey of more than 3,600 banking professionals.

On February 11, Firsthand will host an MBA Virtual Career Fair for first- and second-year MBA students looking to prepare for and find internships and full-time positions. You can register for this free fair here, and learn more about it below.

With inflation on the rise, the cost of basic necessities—from food and clothing to gas and electricity—is going up. This means that, in addition to pandemic stress, students now have to deal with an elevated cost of living.

Today, we're very excited to release our complete 2022 Internship Rankings. This year, our Internship Rankings highlight the top programs in more than 30 categories.

Today, we’re excited to release our 50 Most Prestigious Internships for 2022. This ranking is based on our recent survey of more than 11,400 interns from 140 internship programs.

This past summer, Firsthand surveyed more than 11,400 current and former interns from 140 internship programs—a survey from which we derived our 100 Best Internships ranking. During the survey, we asked interns to rate their internship experiences in a variety of areas, including career development, compensation, full-time employment prospects, interview process, quality of life, quality of assignments, and diversity.

Accounting career paths are much more exciting and rewarding than you might think. Today, accounting firms weave technical innovation and automation into many of their processes, and it's not uncommon for young accounting professionals to be trained in areas like AI, data visualization, data analytics, and data wrangling.

Investment banking is not only a high-paying career but also one of the most rewarding and best when it comes to skills development and growth. A career in banking exposes you to senior professionals, high-profile clients, the inner workings of various businesses and industries, and the ability to hone your presentation, communication, and analytical skills.

Given the widespread adoption of Covid vaccinations, college students are increasingly heading back to college campuses and attending classes in person again. Naturally, the desire to overindulge in collegiate events and festivities could lead to splurging beyond your means.

In honor of Pride Month, we’re highlighting some of our top-ranked employers for LGBTQ+ equity: Armanino, Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, and Schellman. These employers are those that professionals rated the highest when it comes to recruiting, mentoring, supporting, and advancing LGBTQ+ individuals.

Brian Hamilton is the founder and CEO of One, a fintech startup that provides digital banking services to the shrinking U.S. middle class.

In the past few years, the most significant changes in the tech industry have occurred in fintech. Initially, fintech aimed to improve and automate banking services.

Another H-1B lottery season has come to an end. This year, the number of applications far exceeded the 85,000 allotted H-1Bs, the visas international students typically need to work in the U.S.

After four full quarters of Covid-19, some sectors have withered, while others have expanded. One sector that was growing before Covid and is still expanding is fintech.

Today, we release our annual Accounting 50, a ranking of the best accounting firms to work for. The ranking is based on a survey of approximately 11,400 accounting professionals, who were asked to rate their firms in several workplace categories, including business outlook, compensation, culture, hours, training, overall satisfaction, and work/life balance.

This past winter, we surveyed approximately 11,400 accounting professionals, asking them to tell us what it’s like to work for their firms. We asked about culture, compensation, hours, training, work/life balance, diversity, and business outlook.

In the past decade, the investment banking industry has come a long way when it comes to supporting women professionals. Now, many investment banks are strongly focused on gender equality, and have implemented an extensive suite of benefits, mentoring opportunities, and networking groups that support women looking to build careers in investment banking.

Increasing diversity for women and implementing benefits that help women build their careers has been a focus of the accounting industry for many years. Top accounting firms have long been leaders when it comes to generous maternity leave policies, flexible schedule policies, and work-from-home options.

This past fall, Vault surveyed more than 3,000 investment banking professionals. We asked them to rate and comment on their firms’ benefits, compensation, culture, hours, and training, among other workplace factors.