To land a financial professor job, an applicant must have completed a bachelor's and master's degree program with a majority of their coursework in financial, business and statistical classes. Most have doctorate distinctions as well. Financial professors can be adjunct instructors or tenured. A tenured professors generally has a Ph.D. and has been published.
The work ratio of conducting classroom instruction to perusing other related tasks will depend on the policies and existing prestige reputation of the university. Universities that offer a multitude of Ph.D. programs (not just in finance but in other disciplines as well) are more likely to require a heavy research and publishing performance from their finance professors.
Financial professors typically have a flexible weekly schedule, which is impacted by the responsibilities expected out of the professor by the college outside of their classwork preparation and tasks. Financial professors average about three classes each semester, teaching to undergrad, postgraduate or Ph.D. students.
Professors have research requirements each semester, with the intention of offering the research data to industry sources or academic journals. Financial professors usually do their research with the help of graduate students acting as assistants. The research cycle consists of data collection, a series of statistical tests, writing research reports and submitting the reports. Depending on the institution where the finance professor works, they could be expected to compose up to two to three academic papers a year. This is part of the cliché, "publish or perish."
Faculty professors typically serve on one or more faculty committees, within their departments or with professionals from other departments. They attend committee meetings and regularly serve as guiding hands on dissertation committees for graduate students conducting research. Professors might also take turns counseling students in the finance or business degree tracks on their selected coursework and career goals.
Finance professors are typically better compensated for their work. This is because there are more private sector jobs available to them compared to professors in other disciplines and because the Master of Business Administration degree track generates a wealth of student interest. There is a larger number of available finance professor jobs than there are qualified degree holders. The average salary for a nine-month contract ranges from $80,000 to $120,000.