As a finance professional, I am responsible for interviewing businesspeople and determining whether their ventures represent good investment opportunities for my company. As such, I rely on a combination of skills, the most important of which are my communication skills. I must be able to listen to what the various clients tell me, and I must understand their business environment. Most of the clients who come to us are in industry, with a majority in construction or manufacturing. I have developed some familiarity with these industries in order to better understand the business of my clients and in order that I can ask the right questions in order to gain a sense of their business ability and the opportunity they are asking us to help support.
I also use investigative skills as I study financial statements and make inquiries regarding the business of potential clients. Through these investigations, I am able to learn whether the business would be a good credit risk, or whether we would be better off not investing. Sometimes, I rely on the associations and contacts that our potential customers have, and may give additional weight to a client's request if he or a strong business or family contact have done business with us in the past.
The segment of society most directly affected by my profession is the commercial and industrial economy. This is because the activities in which I am engaged, which consist primarily of funding business ventures, directly feeds the economy. Through our efforts, new companies develop the capital needed to enter industry while existing companies are able to gain additional capital required to expand their operations. When this is done in the manufacturing segment, more people in my country are able to be employed and more goods produced. When we fund construction projects, we not only help other companies provide employment, but we also provide housing or other facilities necessary for the c...