AM -> Corp Fin/Financial Analyst
Hey everyone. I'm very early in my career in AM @ a bank out of uni but I've decided I want to pursue the FP&A path for a ton of reasons. I’ve been assisting with portfolio modeling/shifts but none of these skills are transferable to FP&A. We have a separate, in-house team that does our financial modeling on companies but it's one of those things I can learn on my own dime and put it on my resume.
Hi Analyst 1 in AM - Equities, just trying to help:
More suggestions...
If those topics were completely useless, don't blame me, blame my programmers...
Bump, I am curious as to why you have decided to switch? I was under the impression that AM is seen as the golden path in finance, with high pay, reasonable hours and interesting work.
What is your specific question? If you're pretty new, you can jump for entry level CF jobs with no real experience. It's a hot market out there. Just make sure you have your story down- that you found that AM is not right for you, you want to be closer to products and learning how companies work, etc etc. If you graduated in May, no one would be looking at bring you on for wizard tier modeling skills.. the first year at a corp is grunt work anyway (who am I kidding- the first 4-5 years are grunt work).
Sit back and evaluate what you want, though. If I were to do it all over again, I would likely go the AM/PWM route. I like the sales component, I am a nerd about budgeting, financial forecasting, financial planning.. I have complex, 40 year net worth models that plan out savings rates, promos, new homes, etc. I would love to go down the PWM path- eat what I kill, build a book, meet clients on golf courses, etc. I know I am romanticizing it and there are many grind-like components to the role, but working in corporate is rarely glamorous as well. Only reason I don't go the PWM route is that I have a wife and kids, already made manager with a line of sight to Director in 2-4 years, and don't want to have to start over.
My first few roles were basically cost accounting and data entry. You are essentially doing the worst of the bitch work since you're at the bottom of the totem pole. I found that the things that make the bullet points on my resume (the interesting stuff) are the things I spent 10% of my time on. It's a grind until the manager level it seems.
Not trying to dissuade you and say life sucks- just making sure you realize that the grass is greener where you water it.
Thanks for the advice. To answer your question, I don’t really have the soft skills to succeed in the business. The investments portion in AM (what I’m interested in the most) is so efficient that really the only competitive advantage one can have is the relationships they can develop which is difficult for me — I’m predisposed to really bad social anxiety since I was a kid. I took up public speaking classes in college and took initiative on presentations but would just fumble. I don’t mean for this to be dramatic though I have my strengths, but things like big client presentations and meetings just terrify me and the whole business seems 80% relationship driven 20% investments knowledge. I should also emphasize this is AM at a bank, nothing like Vanguard/Fidelity/Blackrock.
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