The term "young professional"

Yes. You might as well just tell people what you do. Also the definition of professional is really vague - the way I understand it you're only a professional if you need a specific certification to do your job (i.e. you absolutely need some form of (inter)nationally recognized licensing or you simply can't practice).

So trainee doctors, lawyers and accountants are most certainly professionals.

Traders, bankers, musicians and chefs are not.

Meriam Webster says professional means:
: relating to a job that requires special education, training, or skill
: done or given by a person who works in a particular profession

I think it's unreasonable to say everyone other than top doctors or lawyers need to piss off. My career is building surveying, which requires both a degree and membership of a royal institution. It doesn't pay amazingly well, but i would call it professional yet you would not. Why draw the line so high?

Working in Tesco's as a cashier requires training...





I have no problem with anyone, even if they have a bad job or no job at all, but labeling yourself as a "young professional" unless you have an amazing job, in which case you would actually state what that job is, makes me laugh.

Fair enough, that's your opinion. It wreaks of insecurity but that's okay.

Yes. You might as well just tell people what you do. Also the definition of professional is really vague - the way I understand it you're only a professional if you need a specific certification to do your job (i.e. you absolutely need some form of (inter)nationally recognized licensing or you simply can't practice).

So trainee doctors, lawyers and accountants are most certainly professionals.

Traders, bankers, musicians and chefs are not.

Lol

Not at all - If you're going to brag about your job, at least say what it is.

If a person is a top doctor or a top lawyer, I think that is extremely admirable, but stereotypical career people who think that 30k a year and a company car makes them the epitome of success, really do need to piss off.

I'd call myself a young professional - it's an accurate label. I wouldn't call myself a lawyer unless someone asked my job.

Bankers and traders need to pass certain qualifications to work in thoes industries. CFA is one.

It is accurate, but to me, it sounds intentionally vague.

Don't traders and bankers need certification for what they do?

No. In certain cases they might, but anyone could become a trader with an internet connection and an online account with a broker.

Likewise, theoretically anyone could start up a banking service (not in the retail sense) advising clients on the positives/negatives of a merger/acquisition/divestiture.

However in order to be a teacher or doctor, you absolutely have to have passed certain exams, otherwise it's illegal to practice whether on behalf of a company, or even working for yourself.

Ah yes, sorry. I was thinking of stockbrokers rather than traders.

You're right that anybody could start up a banking service in theory, although you'd need to apply for authorisation from the FCA for your new firm if you wanted to do much in the way of banking. Apparently, you'd also need to sit the FCA exams if you wanted to work in investment banking yourself. At least that's what JP Morgan seems to think - I don't know about this last part myself.

What comes into my mind when I think of "young professionals" are slimy pretentious 26-30 year old yuppies in suits bought from Debenhams who work either in the financial, HR or legal professions who go for boring drinks in All Bar One (and other boring bars near financial district) after work. People who talk similarly to the contestants on The Apprentice.