In the past, many fund managers pursued "long only" strategies, where they purchased a financial services product and kept it, hoping it will rise in value. Today, many institutional investors continue to invest much of their money with long only fund managers pursuing this same strategy. It is becoming more common, however, for institutional investors to invest their wealth with alternative investment funds, which can turn a profit even when the markets drop.

Generally, careers in fund management are comprised of two different categories: active fund managers and passive fund managers.

Active asset managers aim to beat the current market average and normally take bigger risks with investments to achieve larger rewards.

In comparison, passive management, also known as index tracking, requires choosing a portfolio of assets with the same value as that of a financial index, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the U.S., the UK's FTSE 100, Eurostoxx 50 in the Eurozone or the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong. Creating returns that mirror the market like this is called "generating beta."

Investment positions - In this job, you will invest the money managed by the asset management company. People in investment jobs are generally either financial analysts, who research the best companies and products to invest in, or portfolio managers, who are responsible for investment decisions on a number of funds in their realm of expertise, whether those are equities, fixed income or alternatives.

Distribution positions - Distribution includes positions in sales, marketing, product development and client servicing. These positions are all about selling the fund manager's services to clients, focusing either on winning new clients or maintaining existing relationships.

Fund managers also hire research analysts. These positions involve working with the portfolio managers, visiting companies and assessing their potential for investment and looking through buy and sell information and company reports.

You'll also find many middle-office jobs in fund management in areas like compliance, operations, performance measurement and risk management.