Oct 07, 2011

The Truth About GE's Financial Management Program (FMP)

My two cents about GE's Financial Management Program, the two-year, four-rotation program of General Electric.

General Electric FMP Overview

The very first thing you must bear in mind about the GE FMP is that it’s about accounting. Forget investment banking, capital markets, private equity, or anything even only remotely connected to Wall Street or the Square Mile. Finance in GE = accounting. If accounting is what you want to do, the FMP may be a good choice. If Wall Street is your dream, then the FMP is one of the worst choices you could ever make.

GE FMP Wall Street Exit Opps

The only GE finance roles which can give a relatively decent chance of moving to Wall Street are those in BD (business development) i.e. M&A, dispositions, restructuring etc. But there are very few such roles, they’re very cyclical, and when the job market gets tough there will be little reason for an investment bank to prefer an FMP who did BD over a former investment banker with more relevant experience.

On top of that, managers have a less noble incentive to create FMP rotations: in most GE businesses, hiring freezes are common, and headcount and compensation expenditures are closely monitored. When a finance manager creates an FMP rotation, the FMP will not be listed in the headcount, and his salary will not appear in the compensation & benefits line of the P&L. Instead, the GE business in question will pay a fixed contribution to the central FMP office.

International Rotations in the Financial Management Program

You should also pay close attention to the type of contract they’ll give you. If the chances of international rotations are high, you are exposed to the risk of being sent to a country with a higher cost of living and being given inadequate salary adjustments. Salary adjustments and expat packages for FMPs changed by a huge deal from time to time, and among businesses. As always, the rule is: do no trust a single thing you are promised unless it’s backed up by a written contract. If your contract, or a subsequent written document, clearly states that you will get a cost of living adjustment of x% if you move to country Y, fine; but don’t just expect a decent cost of living adjustment because you think GE is like a big mum which takes care of you and looks after your well-being.

What Do You Do in the Financial Management Program?

Finally, let’s get to the nature of the work. This can change, but the constant is that you’ll be an accountant, and therefore be involved with monthly and quarterly closing, as well as with planning sessions. Once again, you must be very sure that you know what accounting is about, and that you’ll like it. Most of the work involves creating reports and filling in tables with numbers. In an ideal world, you should spend 10 minutes retrieving the data and the rest of the day analyzing it, but in reality you’ll spend 90% of your day retrieving, cleansing and reformatting the data, and there will be no time left for meaningful analyses.

Financial Management Program is Effectively a Back Office Role

Most work is extremely mind-numbing and boring, and could be done by any high school student. I remember several FMPs joking about how their work involved only putting numbers into tables and summing them up… Accounting has always been, and will always be, a back office function: lower pay and lower recognition.

Nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re fully aware of it. Not convincend? Just search this forum, or similar ones, for discussions on how to move from the back office to the front office (especially in banks); almost all forums and career websites are inundated with questions on how to pull this off. Clearly every individual is different, and I may love a job you hate, or viceversa, but why is there not a single front office banker who says that he doesn’t like his job, that he’d love to move to the back office but can’t? Not a single one…

Should I Accept a Position in the General Electric FMP?

Bear in mind that only someone close to you and with direct experience in the field could potentially tell you all the pros and cons of a job, of any given job. On-campus events and company websites are completely pointless, because clearly they’re all about trying to convince you how great the roles they offer are.

What if, instead, accounting really is for you? Like I said, if this is the case, the FMP may be a good choice, as long as you’re really convinced accounting is what you want to do. If this is the case, the best way to progress your career is to join CAS, the corporate audit staff, after the FMP. Make no mistakes: CAS is about auditing and accounting, not about anything fancier. You’ll be ticking boxes and putting together Power Point charts all over the globe – but don’t think Paris New York and Melbourne: think more of industrial plants in the middle of nowhere.

The work/life balance is terrible, worse than in M&A (M&A bankers don’t have to spend 3 months in Idaho and then 4 in the Scottish Highlands), the pay is lower but it tends to propel you to a decent career within GE.

GE Work Environment

Also bear in mind that in GE you will be subjected to a very, very intense brainwashing to convince you that GE is like a big family, that your superiors are like caring relatives who look after your well being, etc. Do I need to tell you how naïve of you it would be to believe any of this? While having a powerful sponsor is good for your career, you must build a CV that is marketable on the outside world, too: your hope of career progression cannot just depend on the benevolence of a manager.

To sum up: the fact that I didn’t like it is irrelevant. It can be a good career choice, but only as long as you know what it entails and you have realistic expectations.

You can read more about the FMP on GE's Corporate Website.

You can read more about GE on the WSO Company Database.

You can also check out a video about the FMP below in a video from GE.

Decided to Pursue a Wall Street Career? Learn How to Network like a Master.

Inside the WSO Finance networking guide, you'll get a comprehensive, all-inclusive roadmap for maximizing your networking efforts (and minimizing embarrassing blunders). This info-rich book is packed with 71 pages of detailed strategies to help you get the most of your networking, including cold emailing templates, questions to ask in interviews, and action steps for success in navigating the Wall Street networking process.

Networking Guide

Add comment

Start Discussion

245 Comments

mhurricane

Gorilla

Suscipit reiciendis recusandae quia. Ad tempore illum reiciendis assumenda. Accusantium et aspernatur amet unde laborum. Numquam deserunt consequatur magnam cum et itaque qui. Quia voluptas similique quos dignissimos inventore animi. Qui sint minus sit vel asperiores.

Eveniet molestiae pariatur et quidem quam quos voluptatum. Aut perferendis a possimus maiores asperiores veritatis libero. Reprehenderit optio accusamus provident repudiandae quis aspernatur fugit.

Ut sed voluptas quibusdam nisi perferendis est tempora in. Illo sit illum molestiae autem rem distinctio rerum. Aut possimus doloremque aliquid repellat.

1	redever	99.2
2	BankonBanking	99.0
3	Betsy Massar	99.0
4	Secyh62	99.0
5	GameTheory	98.9
6	CompBanker	98.9
7	dosk17	98.9
8	kanon	98.9
9	Linda Abraham	98.8
10	numi	98.8