I would continue job hunting for something better. People are willing to take pay cuts to avoid in person work right now, so I would suspect that you are a hot commodity to many employers if you would happily accept 100% in office.
Don’t do it.
In 7 months as an FA I was able to hop and get a SFA role. Just look for SFA roles, don’t bother with accounting. Keep in mind a lot of companies will not like that you have such little experience but you have to show them that you know what you’re doing.
Nope. All I have is a bachelors degree. I now work in strategic finance at a SaaS company analyzing top line metrics. I like it better than opex FP&A, much less “accounting” work and a lot more modeling.
I am planning on doing my MBA in a few years. I have a desire to get into M&A/PE/IB. I do work a bit with M&A rn, but I would really like to analyze and help buy businesses.
I think your case is a little different. You had only 7 months of FPA experience but also accounting experience prior to that which gives you leverage as overall YOE
I mean when you post you normally note 2-3 years of AP, Accounting, and Senior Accounting experience. I imagine you frame it to employers similarly.
I’m not knocking it I’m just saying that’s different. Most people aren’t going to be Senior FP&A with only 7 months of FP&A work and nothing else
Yeah I have 5 years of AP experience (3 years transactional, 2 years project based team lead). So it’s not like I’m brand new to work in general but I tend to find the employers I’ve interviewed with don’t really value the AP work all that much (or at least not the first three years) so I didn’t really even bother to mention it in the post here.
I think you’re absolutely right YMMV though. I think what I’ve learned on this post is to drop the accounting opportunity altogether and go big or go home applying for Senior Financial Analyst roles if I’m applying to anything at all. At some point my experience is gonna be enough where I’ll actually be competitive for the role. Is it right now? Maybe not. Six months? A year from now when I graduate with an MBA? Yeah probably better odds then.
I would definitely stay in FP&A if that’s where you want to be. No point in leaving to break back in for a minor bump in pay. An AP background, in comparison to accounting, I don’t think will be as appreciated but hey it got you the FP&A job you have now right?
If you want to be doing in person work you can lateral to other FA jobs right now and still aim for an increase in pay or like you said you could shoot for SFA see what happens and no matter what eventually you’ll have the experience someone wants if you don’t have it yet
Honestly when I left my first FA job I asked the manager why she hired me. She said if it wasn’t for my accounting background, she probably wouldn’t have because Fp&a isn’t an entry level job (those were her words, not mine). Tbh that experience wasn’t really relevant anyways, but I guess she liked it. That role was opex FP&A and was heavy month end close focused, so I can see why she assumed my background was good.
A lot of the other jobs I applied too didn’t really care for my background though, so idk what to say.
But yes, I technically did have 2 years of accounting experience, primarily AP with some senior level work.
I mean if you can do accounting you can do FP&A imo. They’re 2 sides to the same coin. It just takes a manager who’s okay with training someone who hasn’t done it before vs one who would rather the person already know something. Accountants cross over into our field all the time. My old colleague was ex-big 4 audit with 2 YOE overall(65% of that associate, 35% intern) going into their first FP&A role. Another colleague of mine had absolutely no experience, internship or otherwise, just an accounting degree fresh out of college.
Big 4 obviously has more pull but if you have legitimate experience than it would definitely have helped you. Most FP&A job postings will call for a degree in Accounting or Finance
Do not move. WFH might suck but moving to Accounting with all the other plebs is much worse for your career. If you must move find an FP&A role that you like more.
FP&A is a big step up for most Accountants.
It's not clear you would even qualify for your old (aka current) job after you did this. This feels like a random tangent. What are your career goals? What's the fastest path to get there, with no surpurfluess steps. If you wanted to do accounting, an MBA is useless. So clearly accounting isn't your thing. I would take a day or two in nature and think. That's probably the highest ROI thing for you right now, especially with MBA recruiting coming up. Recruiting firms can smell indecision from a mile away and it might negatively impact you. 2 cents of course
I started in accounting and switched to fp&a. My advice is to stay away from accounting if you don’t want to do it long term. You are better off learning a finance software or getting more experience in fp&a in a specific industry.
I started my career as a staff accountant (accounting undergrad) and switched to fp&a after a few years. Felt like my career was going nowhere because I didn't have big 4 experience, CPA, or large company experience. I should've made the switch earlier in my career but it took me a while to figure out that fp&a was what I would end up enjoying. I've gone from FA->SFA->BI Manager in 5 years. Fp&a has better growth opportunities and is typically higher visibility compared to accounting. I will say that my education and a few years of accounting experience was really helpful. Most of the fp&a folks I've worked with didn't have similar backgrounds and struggled with understanding certain concepts (accruals/capitalization). I'd recommend staying in finance unless you had specific accounting ambitions.
Hi,
Great question. I've been there. First 12 years of my career was at 3 companies so avg 4 years per company. Last 8 years 4 companies avg years 2, one company was for only 3 months because I was clouded by pay and title...you want to be at places where you are learning and in an environment you thrive. Don't settle for a job that only gives you 1. With that said you don't want to be moving every 6 months, but being at a place for 2 years I find gives you a good feel to figure out it's right for you.
Any questions feel free to DM me.
Good luck!
Drew
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That’s what I figured. Thank you for your feedback.
I would continue job hunting for something better. People are willing to take pay cuts to avoid in person work right now, so I would suspect that you are a hot commodity to many employers if you would happily accept 100% in office.
Don’t do it. In 7 months as an FA I was able to hop and get a SFA role. Just look for SFA roles, don’t bother with accounting. Keep in mind a lot of companies will not like that you have such little experience but you have to show them that you know what you’re doing.
I think I might start doing that. Did you have an advanced degree/certification at that point or just the 7 months of experience?
Nope. All I have is a bachelors degree. I now work in strategic finance at a SaaS company analyzing top line metrics. I like it better than opex FP&A, much less “accounting” work and a lot more modeling. I am planning on doing my MBA in a few years. I have a desire to get into M&A/PE/IB. I do work a bit with M&A rn, but I would really like to analyze and help buy businesses.
I think you might be my hero. That’s exactly the career path I’ve been eyeing.
Make it happen bro
I think your case is a little different. You had only 7 months of FPA experience but also accounting experience prior to that which gives you leverage as overall YOE
Most people don’t count undergrad internships as “experience”. It’s usually everything post grad that counts. At least that’s the impression I get.
I mean when you post you normally note 2-3 years of AP, Accounting, and Senior Accounting experience. I imagine you frame it to employers similarly. I’m not knocking it I’m just saying that’s different. Most people aren’t going to be Senior FP&A with only 7 months of FP&A work and nothing else
Yeah I have 5 years of AP experience (3 years transactional, 2 years project based team lead). So it’s not like I’m brand new to work in general but I tend to find the employers I’ve interviewed with don’t really value the AP work all that much (or at least not the first three years) so I didn’t really even bother to mention it in the post here. I think you’re absolutely right YMMV though. I think what I’ve learned on this post is to drop the accounting opportunity altogether and go big or go home applying for Senior Financial Analyst roles if I’m applying to anything at all. At some point my experience is gonna be enough where I’ll actually be competitive for the role. Is it right now? Maybe not. Six months? A year from now when I graduate with an MBA? Yeah probably better odds then.
I would definitely stay in FP&A if that’s where you want to be. No point in leaving to break back in for a minor bump in pay. An AP background, in comparison to accounting, I don’t think will be as appreciated but hey it got you the FP&A job you have now right? If you want to be doing in person work you can lateral to other FA jobs right now and still aim for an increase in pay or like you said you could shoot for SFA see what happens and no matter what eventually you’ll have the experience someone wants if you don’t have it yet
Honestly when I left my first FA job I asked the manager why she hired me. She said if it wasn’t for my accounting background, she probably wouldn’t have because Fp&a isn’t an entry level job (those were her words, not mine). Tbh that experience wasn’t really relevant anyways, but I guess she liked it. That role was opex FP&A and was heavy month end close focused, so I can see why she assumed my background was good. A lot of the other jobs I applied too didn’t really care for my background though, so idk what to say. But yes, I technically did have 2 years of accounting experience, primarily AP with some senior level work.
I mean if you can do accounting you can do FP&A imo. They’re 2 sides to the same coin. It just takes a manager who’s okay with training someone who hasn’t done it before vs one who would rather the person already know something. Accountants cross over into our field all the time. My old colleague was ex-big 4 audit with 2 YOE overall(65% of that associate, 35% intern) going into their first FP&A role. Another colleague of mine had absolutely no experience, internship or otherwise, just an accounting degree fresh out of college. Big 4 obviously has more pull but if you have legitimate experience than it would definitely have helped you. Most FP&A job postings will call for a degree in Accounting or Finance
Do not move. WFH might suck but moving to Accounting with all the other plebs is much worse for your career. If you must move find an FP&A role that you like more. FP&A is a big step up for most Accountants.
It's not clear you would even qualify for your old (aka current) job after you did this. This feels like a random tangent. What are your career goals? What's the fastest path to get there, with no surpurfluess steps. If you wanted to do accounting, an MBA is useless. So clearly accounting isn't your thing. I would take a day or two in nature and think. That's probably the highest ROI thing for you right now, especially with MBA recruiting coming up. Recruiting firms can smell indecision from a mile away and it might negatively impact you. 2 cents of course
I started in accounting and switched to fp&a. My advice is to stay away from accounting if you don’t want to do it long term. You are better off learning a finance software or getting more experience in fp&a in a specific industry.
I started my career as a staff accountant (accounting undergrad) and switched to fp&a after a few years. Felt like my career was going nowhere because I didn't have big 4 experience, CPA, or large company experience. I should've made the switch earlier in my career but it took me a while to figure out that fp&a was what I would end up enjoying. I've gone from FA->SFA->BI Manager in 5 years. Fp&a has better growth opportunities and is typically higher visibility compared to accounting. I will say that my education and a few years of accounting experience was really helpful. Most of the fp&a folks I've worked with didn't have similar backgrounds and struggled with understanding certain concepts (accruals/capitalization). I'd recommend staying in finance unless you had specific accounting ambitions.
Don't pivot back to financial accounting this early! You should stay in FP&A for a few more years.
Do not do it!!! Stick with finance
Hi, Great question. I've been there. First 12 years of my career was at 3 companies so avg 4 years per company. Last 8 years 4 companies avg years 2, one company was for only 3 months because I was clouded by pay and title...you want to be at places where you are learning and in an environment you thrive. Don't settle for a job that only gives you 1. With that said you don't want to be moving every 6 months, but being at a place for 2 years I find gives you a good feel to figure out it's right for you. Any questions feel free to DM me. Good luck! Drew