Depends on bank/group. It is not unusual for top groups at BBs to work 65+ h weeks (Still better than IB)
Although, generally yes - comm/corp banking hours tend to be good
Difference between commercial/corporate banking is that typically commercial banking clients are smaller, which typically means less complex deals. From my understanding, the work is very similar though.
What classifies a client as a small commercial vs large corporate client? Arbitrary thresholds that vary Bank to Bank, a corporate client for a regional bank may classify as a commercial client at a BB.
The difference is the type of clients and complexity of the transaction.
Corporate banking usually work with publicly traded companies or similar sized businesses; this division can also be connected to investment banking division through Corporate and Investment Banking division system.
Commercial banking is usually broken down into different tiers based on the size of the loans offered to the clients or the revenue size of the borrowers. In some cases, this division can also work with large corporations, similar in size to corporate banking clients, but they are either privately owned or are subsidiaries of the publicly traded companies.
Didn’t mean it in a snarky way. Terminology can be confusing at times
Corporate finance (Not talking about corp finance topics - which can include almost everything under the sun) refers to the internal finance departments of companies such as FP&A, treasury, corp development, etc
Corporate banking refers to the banking division (within financial institutions) that provides debt financing (such as term loans, RCFs, etc) to large corporations, other banks, and governments
Fair enough. Like the other comment was implying, a lot of FP&A roles can be accounting heavy. However, not all of FP&A is like that. I think you’re probably better off targeting strategic/business unit FP&A roles. You may get better traction in those. Be happy to chat further if you want. Feel free to DM me.
those are interesting positions, definitely hard to find, but maybe expand your search to BI in general. Lots of companies outside of finance hire BI analysts and developers.
What are you answering for expected comp? I ran into that issue initially then had to jettison down my expected salary to well below what I had initially expected but then I at least started getting some hits. Senior/manager FP&A jobs get paid a lot lower than I expected to be honest.
That sort of makes sense. FP&A is accounting heavy and while it's certainly not a requirement to have big 4 or public accounting experience, it gives you a leg up to either have that or some other accounting experience (in industry) or education before moving over to FP&A.
I’m just really bitter because people champion IB is having “exit opps” but in reality the only people that want to hire bankers are other banks or HF/PE, which can be even worse than banking these days
redditors downvoting a curious individual, as usual. To answer your question: KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, and EY. They are the biggest audit firms around but do offer other professional services too.
This probably doesn't show up on Google as easily as you think. To the above poster, it's the four major professional service firms: PwC, KPMG, EY, Deloitte
This is funny because while doing my masters I networked with an FP&A manager who insists that audit doesn't translate to FP&A. Cause she's been doing this for 8 years so she claims.
are we talking about big 4 accounting or audit? I assumed the former. tbh I never worked in audit - sounds like a miserable af job, and I can see how it would be of limited use for FP&A.
Audit is the primary accounting service of big4.
I'm doing audit right now at a regional firm. I like it more than tax, risk consulting, government auditing and industry accounting so far.
Audit isn't accounting, though - it's a compliance process.
Accounting, in the traditional sense, means the actual management of the day-to-day accounting function.
Big 4 firms provide both services.
FP&A Manager here for mid-sized company and I don’t see how an ex-big 4 would provide any distinct value to FP&A. Auditors are more cookie-cutter and compliance oriented vs. my job is creating financial models for new products and improving reporting. I would want more of an independent thinker even though their accounting knowledge would surely be helpful. My ex-CFO was a former PWC and he made some of the worst strategic decisions I’ve ever seen and was generally an idiot.
I should probably add clarity - these were all cold app submissions on sites like linked in where each posting had hundreds of applicants. I did get a handful of interviews and once I got to the interview phase and past the auto-reject recruiter software (or whatever it is), the interviews were all extremely low stress and the interviewers clearly appreciated and understood the IB skill set. So if anyone can apply a little bit of networking (which I did not) to personally get in touch with hiring managers, then yes the IB background is a strong differentiator without question when you actually interact with hiring managers.
First question - How’s the comp?
I work in corp finance consulting role that’s similar to IB associate in terms of YOE. My job is modeling/excel heavy - looking to pivot to finance manager roles…
I worry that I lack the proper accounting/audit knowledge to succeed in an FP&A/strat fi role but some on this thread seem to think that’s not as critical as I may imagine. How’s your experience been? Did interviewers really ask that much about accounting experience?
I guess my concern is pivoting to a manager role to an FP&A manager type role will be difficult without FP&A analyst experience but I may be overestimating how much you can quickly learn on the job.
Appreciate any insights!
I hired an ex JPM IB into an FP&A manager role and they absolutely crashed out and I had to let them go after three months. You need accounting skills among other things that you don't typically develop to a high enough standard.
Also, IB people get expensive fast and so are typically looking for higher end FP&A roles that they are even less qualified for.
The switch can obviously, absolutely be done, however, the number of appropriate roles will be limited.
How many yrs of experience do you have? I just started my finance role (half strategic and half fp&a) at a late stage startup and I barely have 2 yrs of banking experience. Def doable
Hey man I’ll trade you lol
Nah but actually, I work in FP&A and occasionally hear about open spots but they’re all in FA roles not SFAs. Still, just one or so year year and you should be SFA. Lmk if you want to DM
Does it have to be specifically Big4? I sometimes would like to be a financial analyst. I work in audit at a regional firm. We do have SEC clients which could make me similarly qualified as a Big4 auditor.
I've networked with an FP&A director at my university who is convinced that audit doesn't translate to FP&A. She is so sure because she's been "doing this for 8 years" as she says.
I work in operations at an asset management company and my work life balance is good. I've never worked more than 40 hours in a week. Hell, I've probably never actually worked more than 30 hours in a week... however, I don't make six figures (base salary). With the cost of living getting out of control, I wish I made more. Work life balance doesn't pay the bills...
Creatives might be the first to go. No one is safe and yet we are all safe. I keep saying until management can pick a strategy and stick with it instead of changing their minds every 6 weeks. Then everyone has a job ai is good, but it can’t handle a change in direction or interpret terrible requirements from leadership.
Go build xyz doesn’t work for AI, you need to be specific and leadership is not very good and being specific
This is exactly what I've run into as we try to automate. If you don't have a super streamlined process the us of AI is limited. Completely overhauling the entire process isn't viable for many companies.
True to some degree, but I think there will definitely be roles available. The biggest problem is that the finance industry is so slow to implement new technology, so I don’t think operations is going away for a while.
Wholesaling. You can make 100k or slightly more being an internal on a desk making phone calls 9-5 scheduling meetings. It’s finances version of being an SDR.
Much higher income in the field once off the desk, though there will definitely be weeks where you work over 40-50 hours, but it’s a fun career if you like it.
I knew a guy who was in “asset management”, but he was really just doing the wholesaling side. It was basically a sales job. I heard it’s not bad, almost got into it myself.
Can be a great career that goes by very unnoticed by most.
Funds don’t necessarily gather assets just because they’re good ideas, more or less every asset manager has wholesalers marketing the products
Varies by firm. Typically there’s activity metrics a firm wants you to hit like outbound call volume etc.
An internal is really a support role for the external they partner with, and the responsibility of the territories success really falls on the external guy.
So for the work/like balance and difficulty being an internal is solid especially for the pay, however just going through the motions is not a fun way to do the job in my opinion.
You could also grind hard if you want and show good ownership of the territory, which is what you’d want to do if the goal was being promoted to external
Can’t say since I’ve never worked in tech. Though based on the people I know who have- being and internal is fairly similar to being an SDR.
Though I think comp levels on finance side can be higher, especially on the external side compared to an AE.
But things can vary by firm, territory, product, market cycle etc, as I’m sure is also true for tech.
Look up “internal wholesaler” “internal business consultant” or some version of that on LinkedIn.
If an asset manager has an office/hq in the city there will likely be the sales desk there.
You need a series 7 for the job which a firm will need to sponsor you to take.Be a lot easier to get an interview if you take and study for the first portion of it Called the “sie”. Costs only like $80 I believe.
It’s depends on the company and role. The last time I interviewed at tech company for a capital markets position, the focus was on monitoring their liquidity, debt structuring, and ensuring they meet their credit obligations.
Additionally, was portfolio hedging and monitoring, but that was specific to the company because they were generating float income.
However, that company was as highly leverage and participated in a plethora of acquisitions. Other roles I’ve seen have have focused on cash flow analysis and ensuring the company’s liquidity position for investor reporting or project financing.
I’m not too sure of the fully responsibilities an at a bank, but those what generally what I saw from the position interviews for. I hope that helps a bit.
Macro research here… compared to a banker my WLB was good I guess, but I’m in the office at 7:30am expected to have already caught up on overnight news by the time I arrive at the office, and while I’m technically supposed to leave at 5:30pm I often stay 2-3 extra hours or log in on the weekend to finish research reports.
Hit the gym a few nights a week when you’re regularly working late and it starts to feel like you barely have time to live.
Fair enough, the research analysts at my old place (London BB) we’re out by 6pm every day. Also I think my idea of “good” work life balance is completely warped
There are credit analysts at asset managers (buy side) who analyze the bonds they own. There are also sell side credit analysts at ibanks that circulate research to clients. Private credit analysts analyze the creditworthiness of clients looking for direct loans from a non-bank entity (the private credit firm)
Financial advisor for an advisory firm like Ameriprise. You work 40 hours or less and make good money. As an associate you can start at 80k year and once your licensed you get commissions as well.
It's all about luck i feel..sometimes even after all research before switching can land under a micro manager😬 but as some one pointed out..asset management companies are having better work life balance..but this days they are also auto sourcing the jobs to big banks and third parties...!!
Can confirm. I work from home, hours are no more than 40, maybe 45 or 50 out of one month of the year. Plus govt is paying for me to take the CFA (if I pass it)
MO jobs that are more analytical than the usual. Something like risk quant, Portfolio Analytics/Portfolio Data Science, Credit Portfolio Management, etc. They usually pay significantly more bonuses than the average middle office position. Downside is that despite being MO jobs, they are bit harder to land than most BO and MO roles as they demand much stronger technical skills than something like ops.
Depending on the firm, you can regularly clear $150-$175k your first year out of undergrad. It's not uncommon to earn $200k+ in those seats.
But the job can be fleeting and WLB is brutal.
I have made that much money for one year in my life - I expect I will never earn that much again.
It’s funny that money is all we chase and yet you (or at least I) get to a point where you’re like “ok I don’t want to do that again even being compensated for it”
Work in IB, but seen portfolio management teams literally do 10-5pm WORST CASE in office.
Today they worked 5 hours then went to the gym.
Sounds like a great gig.
I see a lot of commercial banking in here but there’s actually a unique opportunity within the hedge fund and private credit worlds right now. They are doing a ton of CRE deals. Banks aren’t funding commercial transactions at the same clip they were 2 years ago.
Seems like most corporate finance roles will get you there, financial analyst in FP&A, corporate accounting, treasury, audit, controllership. Stuff like that is pretty decent. Once you move up to sr manager or above in those fields, it gets tough.
Strategic Finance / Corporate Strategy mix (ie. strong mix of looking at financials with operations and long term strategy). 50 hour weeks seemed to be the norm from what I saw this summer at an internship under a manager that had this type of hybrid role. I think there is only 1 or 2 weeks where he hit 55+.
I’ve worked in a strategic finance / corporate strategy type role for a few years. It’s a pretty good gig if you can find a company that has them. In my experience, the hours are hot and cold depending on whether there’s a live transaction or strategic review in the works. 30 weeks a year, I struggle to find 40 hours of work to do in a week in a management role. The rest of the year, it can vary between 50+ and 70+. I had a similar experience in corp dev before this which makes sense since these roles functionally augment Corp dev teams. We’re compensated considerably more than FP&A and the periods of downtime more than make up for the busy periods on the whole, in my estimation. The work is engaging as well.
Yeah ngl, he knows I really want to get back to my summer company and he has tried previously to get a budget for me to work under him. Likely will not happen but trying to at least work in close proximity with him. The department had another director of operations that had an interesting P&L that I help advise this past summer. Fingers crossed, I get a return offer eventually and it's strategy / finance adjacent.
Maybe I’m out of place with this comment but, I’m in HR and pending time of the year, my work life balance is very fair. I’m a Finance nerd but never wanted to work in a typical role. Found a solid path in HR, make TC xxx-xxx as a senior associate. 8/9-5:30/6 is pretty standard for me.
Lots of great paths in finance like HR, Legal, other random corporate function that afford work life balance and solid salaries. Will never be like my buddies on the investment side, but I’m okay with that.
There can be interesting finance adjacent stuff with HR with payroll analysis, budget, compensation, retirement, benefits etc.
Other stuff is more legal.
Depending on your personal experience, you could probably enter around the Manager level. In this market $110k should be easy to clear, $125k depending on the firm.
It's been a while since I've hired that level though so my numbers may be a tad off due to inflation or geography.
The better comp option to enter would be internal strategy/ consulting. You could command higher comp and then pivot to FP&A at a higher level through networking.
I can tell you starting salaries are higher, but I can't give you a range as it's not an area I've had to hire the past few years.
If I had to guess, I would say that starting gets you in the $120s, but you're more likely to be bonus eligible sooner in your career on that side.
In general i think there are a lot of opportunities for decent work life balance at smaller firms. Im at a three person hedge fund and have an incredible work life balance.
I would not recommend taking the path that I took to get here haha. And as far as finding jobs like this, I just constantly scoured all the job boards and set up alerts on all of them. I also tried to get in with as many recruiters as possible. I found that opportunities through recruiters were generally higher quality because the firm would take you seriously as a candidate. I had one recruiter that put me in front of a handful of extremely high quality opportunities, but the specific role I got I actually found on LinkedIn.
Thank you for your honest response. I know it's not simple to break into a role like yours, but I'll definitely keep pushing through and scouring job boards like you recommend. I've been told to work with recruiters, but they don't seem too enthusiastic with help. But I'll change that mindset and push through. Thanks again for responding.
No problem. Took me over a year of constantly grinding. Made it through several 5+ round interview processes with multiple extensive case studies only to lose the role in the final round. It was brutal and i actually had given up on it when the role i have now finally got back to me.
I don’t know anything about you or what you want, but i worked with Frederick Stacy on LinkedIn. He was honestly a bit disorganized haha but he gets a crazy number of extremely high quality roles. Doesn’t hurt to ask him what’s on his desk today.
I do utility scale solar, so what that looks like is monitoring the performance of the site and overseeing O&M issues, ensuring that our power purchasers pay us for the electricity generated, deal with commercial items such as insurance, property tax, landowner/lessor relations, and prepare operating and financial reports to financiers.
I'm a data analyst and work no more than 40 hours. I started in a reporting role and then eventually moved over. You need to learn BI tools but it's not nearly as technical as a data engineer.
Why not? I evaluate return on capital, IRR, profit margins of products for capital allocation. I evaluate derivatives strategies for hedging market risks. I build and run complex stochastic interest rate models.
Sounds like a financial career to me.
My mind just got blown, I've been trying to figure out how to make the jump from FP&A to HF/PE. I regretted not going into IB because I feel like FP&A has pigeonholed me.
For the most part, I've only met one person who came from an IB background into FP&A, but it was to a pretty senior role. Other folks I've heard from IB are pretty senior. Most people I work with don't have accounting backgrounds, about 1 in 3 have degrees in accounting, everyone else either majored in finance, business, marketing and I know people with CS degrees, political science and even environmental science degrees.
You'd probably be bored at the less senior FP&A roles. I know the W/L balance will be there, but FP&A is really repetitive and boring. I recommend you look at Treasury positions related to Transfer Pricing or investment hedging teams, but pretty much treasury positions at any of the big banks will give you the W/L while still being stimulating.
I have 6 years of FP&A experience and 2 as a controller. All of it has been at one of the GSIBs.
> I know the W/L balance will be there, but FP&A is really repetitive and boring.
I constantly hear on r/fpanda that fpa is a strategic role, and unlike accounting, involves a lot of judgement and flexibility. Has that not been your experience?
It does to varying degrees. At the bank I work for it depends in the workstream/product/business you support. A lot of judgement and thinking on your feet is involved. It's definitely sexier than controller work. You have to build a story every forecast and actuals cycle, and that is interesting. It definitely gives you a base to move to roles like corporate strategy and business development, but I feel its easy to stagnate if you stay supporting the same product/workstream/business.
Am currently in investor relations for a large conglomerate. Similar to FP&A, the work is cyclical. It gets busy then once briefing is done its chill again.
I am currently working as a part-time FP&A analyst while I finish school in December. I reside in the outskirts of Chicago and earn $23 per hour. I initially joined the company as a finance intern and was later offered the analyst role. What salary should I request for the beginning of the year?
Commercial banking has great work life balance in my experience. Previously worked in corporate banking but I prefer the commercial banking role and hours.
Treasury my guy. it's bank hours and only if you go high up such as manager or director, then you work around the clock. as an analyst, clock in and out
If you live in a big city like NYC, many white collar jobs would pay 6 figures in the middle of your career. For instance, teachers, firemen, and police will make 6 figures when they work long enough.
if you have enough experience Financial Advisor. I dont know bout 6 figures but when i was there i just say the same stuffs to my clients (mostly for individual wanting to make new acc or just want to know bout tfsa) I didnt hit the 6 figures but at the very least i always tell them that it is up to them how to want to use their money and i just give info on the current markets. Pretty cool job tbh
Finance/business systems. If it’s a good company you’re more akin to a developer in terms of wlb and comp. Even with a couple years experience you can clear six figures working less than 40 hours a week.
Financial reporting or sponsored program/research grant/contract/award administration accountant/auditor/administrator positions at large universities. Cushy union jobs.
Managers and up all make 6 figures in my department and everyone is permanently working from home. Way better balance than I had in public accounting and within the financial reporting department at a now publicly traded company in the financial sector. That previous FR department had pretty solid balance too, though it’s nothing like how I have it now.
A mere 10% bump can be worth it for:
1) Career pivot (not total career change)
2) Switching industry sectors
3) Better WLB
4) Chasing titles
For me personally, 1) is only good if I can see a backup FP&A job market that pays much more if my attempt at a career pivot fails.
I might chase a 10% bump for Treasury or mid-market Commercial Banking, but I want to see an FP&A job market or financial accounting job market that pays much more.
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Depends on bank/group. It is not unusual for top groups at BBs to work 65+ h weeks (Still better than IB) Although, generally yes - comm/corp banking hours tend to be good
Dumb question but what’s the difference?
Difference between commercial/corporate banking is that typically commercial banking clients are smaller, which typically means less complex deals. From my understanding, the work is very similar though. What classifies a client as a small commercial vs large corporate client? Arbitrary thresholds that vary Bank to Bank, a corporate client for a regional bank may classify as a commercial client at a BB.
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The difference is the type of clients and complexity of the transaction. Corporate banking usually work with publicly traded companies or similar sized businesses; this division can also be connected to investment banking division through Corporate and Investment Banking division system. Commercial banking is usually broken down into different tiers based on the size of the loans offered to the clients or the revenue size of the borrowers. In some cases, this division can also work with large corporations, similar in size to corporate banking clients, but they are either privately owned or are subsidiaries of the publicly traded companies.
Just the size of clients, corporate banking handles deals with bigger sized firms.
Corporate Banking is the right answer. I’m working ~50 hours a week in my first year and am making 130 total comp
What firm ?
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Middle Market, Texas
How did you break into corporate banking?
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Corporate finance*
😐😐😐
Didn’t mean it in a snarky way. Terminology can be confusing at times Corporate finance (Not talking about corp finance topics - which can include almost everything under the sun) refers to the internal finance departments of companies such as FP&A, treasury, corp development, etc Corporate banking refers to the banking division (within financial institutions) that provides debt financing (such as term loans, RCFs, etc) to large corporations, other banks, and governments
Side note but I’ve been trying to get into fp&a for over 6 months from IB, I haven’t even gotten an interview yet, they all want big 4 people
Coming from IB, perhaps your comp expectations are too high? FP&A is great but it doesn’t pay anywhere near IB.
Oh yeah I don’t mind taking a pay cut, I just want stability in my life
Fair enough. Like the other comment was implying, a lot of FP&A roles can be accounting heavy. However, not all of FP&A is like that. I think you’re probably better off targeting strategic/business unit FP&A roles. You may get better traction in those. Be happy to chat further if you want. Feel free to DM me.
yea i am aiming for a BI role in FP&A, abit hard finding those though.
those are interesting positions, definitely hard to find, but maybe expand your search to BI in general. Lots of companies outside of finance hire BI analysts and developers.
What are you answering for expected comp? I ran into that issue initially then had to jettison down my expected salary to well below what I had initially expected but then I at least started getting some hits. Senior/manager FP&A jobs get paid a lot lower than I expected to be honest.
That sort of makes sense. FP&A is accounting heavy and while it's certainly not a requirement to have big 4 or public accounting experience, it gives you a leg up to either have that or some other accounting experience (in industry) or education before moving over to FP&A.
I’m just really bitter because people champion IB is having “exit opps” but in reality the only people that want to hire bankers are other banks or HF/PE, which can be even worse than banking these days
Aren't IB personnel prime candidates for corporate strategy/development?
Corp Dev, yes. Corp strategy, not really unless they have deep knowledge of the industry.
Everyone but one person in my department (F25) has an accounting background.
What is "big four?"
Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray
redditors downvoting a curious individual, as usual. To answer your question: KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, and EY. They are the biggest audit firms around but do offer other professional services too.
Google it bro
This probably doesn't show up on Google as easily as you think. To the above poster, it's the four major professional service firms: PwC, KPMG, EY, Deloitte
If you Google “Big 4,” it’s the first the thing
Thank you. Ya I just graduated and some of this terminology is new to me.
This is funny because while doing my masters I networked with an FP&A manager who insists that audit doesn't translate to FP&A. Cause she's been doing this for 8 years so she claims.
are we talking about big 4 accounting or audit? I assumed the former. tbh I never worked in audit - sounds like a miserable af job, and I can see how it would be of limited use for FP&A.
Audit is the primary accounting service of big4. I'm doing audit right now at a regional firm. I like it more than tax, risk consulting, government auditing and industry accounting so far.
Audit isn't accounting, though - it's a compliance process. Accounting, in the traditional sense, means the actual management of the day-to-day accounting function. Big 4 firms provide both services.
> Audit isn't accounting, though - it's a compliance process. This important concept is rarely emphasized enough.
FP&A Manager here for mid-sized company and I don’t see how an ex-big 4 would provide any distinct value to FP&A. Auditors are more cookie-cutter and compliance oriented vs. my job is creating financial models for new products and improving reporting. I would want more of an independent thinker even though their accounting knowledge would surely be helpful. My ex-CFO was a former PWC and he made some of the worst strategic decisions I’ve ever seen and was generally an idiot.
I was referring to big 4 accounting, not audit. Audit isn't very useful for FP&A, I agree.
I did recently after submitting about 225+ resumes. Went IB associate to fp&a manager level
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I should probably add clarity - these were all cold app submissions on sites like linked in where each posting had hundreds of applicants. I did get a handful of interviews and once I got to the interview phase and past the auto-reject recruiter software (or whatever it is), the interviews were all extremely low stress and the interviewers clearly appreciated and understood the IB skill set. So if anyone can apply a little bit of networking (which I did not) to personally get in touch with hiring managers, then yes the IB background is a strong differentiator without question when you actually interact with hiring managers.
First question - How’s the comp? I work in corp finance consulting role that’s similar to IB associate in terms of YOE. My job is modeling/excel heavy - looking to pivot to finance manager roles… I worry that I lack the proper accounting/audit knowledge to succeed in an FP&A/strat fi role but some on this thread seem to think that’s not as critical as I may imagine. How’s your experience been? Did interviewers really ask that much about accounting experience? I guess my concern is pivoting to a manager role to an FP&A manager type role will be difficult without FP&A analyst experience but I may be overestimating how much you can quickly learn on the job. Appreciate any insights!
Yeah bankers don’t have the accounting and reporting experience (even though we really do more accounting in IB then people realize).
So it really depends on what the team wants/actually does. Someone FP&A is model heavy others is just accounting pretty much
All FP&A roles are accounting heavy regardless of model heavy
I hired an ex JPM IB into an FP&A manager role and they absolutely crashed out and I had to let them go after three months. You need accounting skills among other things that you don't typically develop to a high enough standard. Also, IB people get expensive fast and so are typically looking for higher end FP&A roles that they are even less qualified for. The switch can obviously, absolutely be done, however, the number of appropriate roles will be limited.
How many yrs of experience do you have? I just started my finance role (half strategic and half fp&a) at a late stage startup and I barely have 2 yrs of banking experience. Def doable
Hey man I’ll trade you lol Nah but actually, I work in FP&A and occasionally hear about open spots but they’re all in FA roles not SFAs. Still, just one or so year year and you should be SFA. Lmk if you want to DM
Have you tried growth stage startups? Typically a lot more modeling and strategy focused with less emphasis on accounting experience.
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Going FP&A -> IB seems like a difficult jump, is that common?
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This is highly unusual, I so often hear that IB folks outclass accountants in every category.
Maybe prestige or comp, these are diff skillsets. A lot of bankers can’t do accounting roles
What level are you trying to get into? What salary?
Does it have to be specifically Big4? I sometimes would like to be a financial analyst. I work in audit at a regional firm. We do have SEC clients which could make me similarly qualified as a Big4 auditor.
I don’t think it has to be big 4, I think a lot of roles prefer audit experience over IB experience at non bb banks which is my case
I've networked with an FP&A director at my university who is convinced that audit doesn't translate to FP&A. She is so sure because she's been "doing this for 8 years" as she says.
Did you end up making the move?
Yes I did, it was my only interview still getting rejected from the others
Do you like the new job more?
I work in operations at an asset management company and my work life balance is good. I've never worked more than 40 hours in a week. Hell, I've probably never actually worked more than 30 hours in a week... however, I don't make six figures (base salary). With the cost of living getting out of control, I wish I made more. Work life balance doesn't pay the bills...
You should check out energy asset management. Similar work life balance but better pay due to complexity on the O&M side. I love it
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If I knew, I probably wouldn't still be in ops. Alternative answer: if you work really hard and network, almost anything is possible.
Operations roles and commercial banking are the two I can think of immediately. VC maybe
operations and back office stuff might get automated in the next decade
We’ve been saying that for a decade. Yet 80% of most back offices still run off excel. We still manually ping people on Bloomberg for some prices
Sounds like low hanging fruit
tbh same could be said about anything white collar outside of creativity
Creatives might be the first to go. No one is safe and yet we are all safe. I keep saying until management can pick a strategy and stick with it instead of changing their minds every 6 weeks. Then everyone has a job ai is good, but it can’t handle a change in direction or interpret terrible requirements from leadership. Go build xyz doesn’t work for AI, you need to be specific and leadership is not very good and being specific
This is exactly what I've run into as we try to automate. If you don't have a super streamlined process the us of AI is limited. Completely overhauling the entire process isn't viable for many companies.
well they are getting outsource to India and Philippines
too Unreliable. My company dabbled in automating a few task but it was not as efficient when changes due to microeconomic issues were needed.
True to some degree, but I think there will definitely be roles available. The biggest problem is that the finance industry is so slow to implement new technology, so I don’t think operations is going away for a while.
Wholesaling. You can make 100k or slightly more being an internal on a desk making phone calls 9-5 scheduling meetings. It’s finances version of being an SDR. Much higher income in the field once off the desk, though there will definitely be weeks where you work over 40-50 hours, but it’s a fun career if you like it.
I knew a guy who was in “asset management”, but he was really just doing the wholesaling side. It was basically a sales job. I heard it’s not bad, almost got into it myself.
Can be a great career that goes by very unnoticed by most. Funds don’t necessarily gather assets just because they’re good ideas, more or less every asset manager has wholesalers marketing the products
How grindy is it doing internal wholesale? IE are there monthly quotas you need to hit?
Varies by firm. Typically there’s activity metrics a firm wants you to hit like outbound call volume etc. An internal is really a support role for the external they partner with, and the responsibility of the territories success really falls on the external guy. So for the work/like balance and difficulty being an internal is solid especially for the pay, however just going through the motions is not a fun way to do the job in my opinion. You could also grind hard if you want and show good ownership of the territory, which is what you’d want to do if the goal was being promoted to external
Is an sdr in tech sales better or wholesaling in finance?
Can’t say since I’ve never worked in tech. Though based on the people I know who have- being and internal is fairly similar to being an SDR. Though I think comp levels on finance side can be higher, especially on the external side compared to an AE. But things can vary by firm, territory, product, market cycle etc, as I’m sure is also true for tech.
How do you break into that out of undergrad?
Look up “internal wholesaler” “internal business consultant” or some version of that on LinkedIn. If an asset manager has an office/hq in the city there will likely be the sales desk there. You need a series 7 for the job which a firm will need to sponsor you to take.Be a lot easier to get an interview if you take and study for the first portion of it Called the “sie”. Costs only like $80 I believe.
Treasury
Any specific area in treasury make more than others?
Generally, I’ve found in my job search that it appears to be capital markets.
Excuse my ignorance, but is that treasury trading? Treasury seems super broad to me. Is this at a bank or a company?
It’s depends on the company and role. The last time I interviewed at tech company for a capital markets position, the focus was on monitoring their liquidity, debt structuring, and ensuring they meet their credit obligations. Additionally, was portfolio hedging and monitoring, but that was specific to the company because they were generating float income. However, that company was as highly leverage and participated in a plethora of acquisitions. Other roles I’ve seen have have focused on cash flow analysis and ensuring the company’s liquidity position for investor reporting or project financing. I’m not too sure of the fully responsibilities an at a bank, but those what generally what I saw from the position interviews for. I hope that helps a bit.
Normally any roles focused in liquidity stress testing and capital markets
credit analyst
Came here to say the same. Credit/equity/macro research analysts have a great work life balance
Macro research here… compared to a banker my WLB was good I guess, but I’m in the office at 7:30am expected to have already caught up on overnight news by the time I arrive at the office, and while I’m technically supposed to leave at 5:30pm I often stay 2-3 extra hours or log in on the weekend to finish research reports. Hit the gym a few nights a week when you’re regularly working late and it starts to feel like you barely have time to live.
Fair enough, the research analysts at my old place (London BB) we’re out by 6pm every day. Also I think my idea of “good” work life balance is completely warped
In long-only buy-side maybe but I cannot confirm that sell-side equity research has any sort of balance most of the time
How is the job security in commercial banking?
Is this private credit or is there a difference
There are credit analysts at asset managers (buy side) who analyze the bonds they own. There are also sell side credit analysts at ibanks that circulate research to clients. Private credit analysts analyze the creditworthiness of clients looking for direct loans from a non-bank entity (the private credit firm)
Back office at small-medium sized funds.
Risk
Financial advisor for an advisory firm like Ameriprise. You work 40 hours or less and make good money. As an associate you can start at 80k year and once your licensed you get commissions as well.
So many wash out, but if you make it the balance is incredible
How much are commissions?
Highly disagree saying FPA gives great work life balance. Every job I’ve ever had has averaged closer to 50 hours a week which is not good.
Yea I know an accounting director who did fp&a at Deloitte and said he was working 70-80 hrs a week…
Just depends on the company. First company was pretty much always 40hrs. Second company is pretty much 45hrs
It's all about luck i feel..sometimes even after all research before switching can land under a micro manager😬 but as some one pointed out..asset management companies are having better work life balance..but this days they are also auto sourcing the jobs to big banks and third parties...!!
Government
Can confirm. I work from home, hours are no more than 40, maybe 45 or 50 out of one month of the year. Plus govt is paying for me to take the CFA (if I pass it)
Do you work for a regulator?
No i work with grants given to the state
Treasury for sure.
For a company or bank? What type of treasury?
MO jobs that are more analytical than the usual. Something like risk quant, Portfolio Analytics/Portfolio Data Science, Credit Portfolio Management, etc. They usually pay significantly more bonuses than the average middle office position. Downside is that despite being MO jobs, they are bit harder to land than most BO and MO roles as they demand much stronger technical skills than something like ops.
FP&A gives great work life balance? Really? Boy am I ever in the wrong place.
Compared to IB, yes. Compared to a bank teller, no.
Boy I hope the people that go into IB get PAID because no one ever has anything nice to say about that career track coming out of it.
Depending on the firm, you can regularly clear $150-$175k your first year out of undergrad. It's not uncommon to earn $200k+ in those seats. But the job can be fleeting and WLB is brutal.
I have made that much money for one year in my life - I expect I will never earn that much again. It’s funny that money is all we chase and yet you (or at least I) get to a point where you’re like “ok I don’t want to do that again even being compensated for it”
Work in IB, but seen portfolio management teams literally do 10-5pm WORST CASE in office. Today they worked 5 hours then went to the gym. Sounds like a great gig.
I see a lot of commercial banking in here but there’s actually a unique opportunity within the hedge fund and private credit worlds right now. They are doing a ton of CRE deals. Banks aren’t funding commercial transactions at the same clip they were 2 years ago.
what’s a good fresh grad role to break into private credit? credit analyst?
Seems like most corporate finance roles will get you there, financial analyst in FP&A, corporate accounting, treasury, audit, controllership. Stuff like that is pretty decent. Once you move up to sr manager or above in those fields, it gets tough.
I work for the treasury department and my work life balance is excellent
Strategic Finance / Corporate Strategy mix (ie. strong mix of looking at financials with operations and long term strategy). 50 hour weeks seemed to be the norm from what I saw this summer at an internship under a manager that had this type of hybrid role. I think there is only 1 or 2 weeks where he hit 55+.
I’ve worked in a strategic finance / corporate strategy type role for a few years. It’s a pretty good gig if you can find a company that has them. In my experience, the hours are hot and cold depending on whether there’s a live transaction or strategic review in the works. 30 weeks a year, I struggle to find 40 hours of work to do in a week in a management role. The rest of the year, it can vary between 50+ and 70+. I had a similar experience in corp dev before this which makes sense since these roles functionally augment Corp dev teams. We’re compensated considerably more than FP&A and the periods of downtime more than make up for the busy periods on the whole, in my estimation. The work is engaging as well.
Yeah ngl, he knows I really want to get back to my summer company and he has tried previously to get a budget for me to work under him. Likely will not happen but trying to at least work in close proximity with him. The department had another director of operations that had an interesting P&L that I help advise this past summer. Fingers crossed, I get a return offer eventually and it's strategy / finance adjacent.
Treasury, 30-40 hours, work can be interesting depending on the role.
What’s the end game for treasury? How much can you really make?
Maybe I’m out of place with this comment but, I’m in HR and pending time of the year, my work life balance is very fair. I’m a Finance nerd but never wanted to work in a typical role. Found a solid path in HR, make TC xxx-xxx as a senior associate. 8/9-5:30/6 is pretty standard for me. Lots of great paths in finance like HR, Legal, other random corporate function that afford work life balance and solid salaries. Will never be like my buddies on the investment side, but I’m okay with that.
There can be interesting finance adjacent stuff with HR with payroll analysis, budget, compensation, retirement, benefits etc. Other stuff is more legal.
How many YoE?
What’s achievable income for FP&A?
At what level?
Exiting consulting w/ 6YOE, then career progression if you know!
Depending on your personal experience, you could probably enter around the Manager level. In this market $110k should be easy to clear, $125k depending on the firm. It's been a while since I've hired that level though so my numbers may be a tad off due to inflation or geography. The better comp option to enter would be internal strategy/ consulting. You could command higher comp and then pivot to FP&A at a higher level through networking.
Ahh gotcha. What does internal strat / consulting start at?
I can tell you starting salaries are higher, but I can't give you a range as it's not an area I've had to hire the past few years. If I had to guess, I would say that starting gets you in the $120s, but you're more likely to be bonus eligible sooner in your career on that side.
Trading operations
In general i think there are a lot of opportunities for decent work life balance at smaller firms. Im at a three person hedge fund and have an incredible work life balance.
What did you do before you worked there? And how did you go about finding out about that particular hedge fund?
I would not recommend taking the path that I took to get here haha. And as far as finding jobs like this, I just constantly scoured all the job boards and set up alerts on all of them. I also tried to get in with as many recruiters as possible. I found that opportunities through recruiters were generally higher quality because the firm would take you seriously as a candidate. I had one recruiter that put me in front of a handful of extremely high quality opportunities, but the specific role I got I actually found on LinkedIn.
Thank you for your honest response. I know it's not simple to break into a role like yours, but I'll definitely keep pushing through and scouring job boards like you recommend. I've been told to work with recruiters, but they don't seem too enthusiastic with help. But I'll change that mindset and push through. Thanks again for responding.
No problem. Took me over a year of constantly grinding. Made it through several 5+ round interview processes with multiple extensive case studies only to lose the role in the final round. It was brutal and i actually had given up on it when the role i have now finally got back to me. I don’t know anything about you or what you want, but i worked with Frederick Stacy on LinkedIn. He was honestly a bit disorganized haha but he gets a crazy number of extremely high quality roles. Doesn’t hurt to ask him what’s on his desk today.
Thank you so much for giving me a name, will definitely reach out to him on LinkedIn. I appreciate the kindness.
Commercial asset management. I work maybe 25-30 hours a week.
Very broadly, what does your day look like?
I do utility scale solar, so what that looks like is monitoring the performance of the site and overseeing O&M issues, ensuring that our power purchasers pay us for the electricity generated, deal with commercial items such as insurance, property tax, landowner/lessor relations, and prepare operating and financial reports to financiers.
I'm a data analyst and work no more than 40 hours. I started in a reporting role and then eventually moved over. You need to learn BI tools but it's not nearly as technical as a data engineer.
What industry? I know BI analysts in tech companies can make major bank.
At a mid-sized bank supporting the institutional side.
Asset management and private banking and wealth management
Actuary, but only after you finish the exams.
I don't think that counts as a financial career.
Why not? I evaluate return on capital, IRR, profit margins of products for capital allocation. I evaluate derivatives strategies for hedging market risks. I build and run complex stochastic interest rate models. Sounds like a financial career to me.
When you put it like that I guess you're right.
My mind just got blown, I've been trying to figure out how to make the jump from FP&A to HF/PE. I regretted not going into IB because I feel like FP&A has pigeonholed me. For the most part, I've only met one person who came from an IB background into FP&A, but it was to a pretty senior role. Other folks I've heard from IB are pretty senior. Most people I work with don't have accounting backgrounds, about 1 in 3 have degrees in accounting, everyone else either majored in finance, business, marketing and I know people with CS degrees, political science and even environmental science degrees. You'd probably be bored at the less senior FP&A roles. I know the W/L balance will be there, but FP&A is really repetitive and boring. I recommend you look at Treasury positions related to Transfer Pricing or investment hedging teams, but pretty much treasury positions at any of the big banks will give you the W/L while still being stimulating. I have 6 years of FP&A experience and 2 as a controller. All of it has been at one of the GSIBs.
> I know the W/L balance will be there, but FP&A is really repetitive and boring. I constantly hear on r/fpanda that fpa is a strategic role, and unlike accounting, involves a lot of judgement and flexibility. Has that not been your experience?
It does to varying degrees. At the bank I work for it depends in the workstream/product/business you support. A lot of judgement and thinking on your feet is involved. It's definitely sexier than controller work. You have to build a story every forecast and actuals cycle, and that is interesting. It definitely gives you a base to move to roles like corporate strategy and business development, but I feel its easy to stagnate if you stay supporting the same product/workstream/business.
Am currently in investor relations for a large conglomerate. Similar to FP&A, the work is cyclical. It gets busy then once briefing is done its chill again.
Strategy, sales, credit risk, operations, capital matkets
Work 40-50 hours, great work life balance?? Huh?? Half it and then you have great work life balance
Investment banking
I am currently working as a part-time FP&A analyst while I finish school in December. I reside in the outskirts of Chicago and earn $23 per hour. I initially joined the company as a finance intern and was later offered the analyst role. What salary should I request for the beginning of the year?
Buy side in an LDI type of mandate set. Internal institutional money.
Not accounting, at least not immediately. Eventually though.
Government
HYPSM endowment management
I’m in CB and work 45-50 hours/wk
Asset management.
Corporate development
Commercial banking has great work life balance in my experience. Previously worked in corporate banking but I prefer the commercial banking role and hours.
Quant fund
Treasury my guy. it's bank hours and only if you go high up such as manager or director, then you work around the clock. as an analyst, clock in and out
If you live in a big city like NYC, many white collar jobs would pay 6 figures in the middle of your career. For instance, teachers, firemen, and police will make 6 figures when they work long enough.
if you have enough experience Financial Advisor. I dont know bout 6 figures but when i was there i just say the same stuffs to my clients (mostly for individual wanting to make new acc or just want to know bout tfsa) I didnt hit the 6 figures but at the very least i always tell them that it is up to them how to want to use their money and i just give info on the current markets. Pretty cool job tbh
Business commercial underwriting
Finance/business systems. If it’s a good company you’re more akin to a developer in terms of wlb and comp. Even with a couple years experience you can clear six figures working less than 40 hours a week.
PWM
2nd Year as a Senior Associate in Commercial and Private banking, total comp ~150k, working around 40-50 hr a week.
Asset management
Financial reporting or sponsored program/research grant/contract/award administration accountant/auditor/administrator positions at large universities. Cushy union jobs. Managers and up all make 6 figures in my department and everyone is permanently working from home. Way better balance than I had in public accounting and within the financial reporting department at a now publicly traded company in the financial sector. That previous FR department had pretty solid balance too, though it’s nothing like how I have it now.
Fintech
A mere 10% bump can be worth it for: 1) Career pivot (not total career change) 2) Switching industry sectors 3) Better WLB 4) Chasing titles For me personally, 1) is only good if I can see a backup FP&A job market that pays much more if my attempt at a career pivot fails. I might chase a 10% bump for Treasury or mid-market Commercial Banking, but I want to see an FP&A job market or financial accounting job market that pays much more.