Long Luong · 2 min read · Research Resources
PhD in Finance Timeline
From the first year to the job market

The target of Finance PhD programs is to place a student in a good academic job. The academic job market for finance rookies usually starts in September and ends in April of the following year. There are two key meetings: the Financial Management Association (FMA) and the American Finance Association (AFA) meetings.
Note: The above timeline is based on the information in Butler and Crack (2022)
Schools advertise jobs on:
- Journal of Finance website
- SSRN.com
- FMA website
- Job Openings for Economists website
- Chronicle of Higher Education website
- HigherEdJobs.com
- EconJobMarket.org
- European Financial Management Association
The basic timeline for a student joining the PhD program in the Fall of 2026 and planning to graduate in 5 years looks like this:
Note: This is a target timeline. Nowadays, it’s common for a PhD in Finance to take more than five years to complete before entering the job market.
I will update this series with more detailed information and checklist for each year.