My career path has been somewhat unorthodox thus far, I’m actually pretty happy I’ve made it this far, but I’m totally burned out. The problem is that I don’t know what my next move is, or what I’m necessarily qualified for.
A little background first – I screwed around in undergrad and I graduated midway through the recession without a job. Luckily I finagled my way into business school at my alma mater and earned my MBA. That’s probably one of the better choices I've made. I enjoyed my classes, did a congressional internship, and fell backwards into a career in commercial banking.
I started my career as a commercial credit analyst for a $800MM bank, ended up quitting after seven months, moved to Austin, and started at a $7B credit union as the lead commercial credit. After a year this led me to another bank in San Antonio – this time as a credit manager and senior underwriter for the bank, also supervise a team of analysts. This job by far has had the greatest amount of responsibilities. I’ve been there for a little over a year now, but I’m tired of credit. It’s no longer challenging and the work has become monotonous and mundane. I don’t know what to do now. I feel limited in options because I didn't go to a target school, got my MBA too soon, and matured too late. Ideally I’d like to get out of banking and transition to corporate finance. Although skilled in many areas of finance, my resume doesn’t directly translate to a lot of the positions I see posted on LinkedIn. I’m considering registering for the CFA level I exam next June, but I’m really not sure if it would help. I regularly attend networking events around town, but they’re all commercial bankers and realtors. Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind leaving town or getting out of Texas for a while. I’d appreciate any advice or personal anecdotes. Thanks in advance!
What do you find mundane about credit? What aspect of corporate finance do you anticipate will be more stimulating?
I supposed every job has its moments of inherent mundanity. That being said, I feel like there's a bit more "excitement" and opportunity on the finance side. Perhaps I'm just being naive. I have some experience in capital planning/analysis/investments, and I find it a bit more intellectually challenging than simply calculating debt coverage ratios in a risk adverse environment. Nothing ever changes - analyze financials, calculate debt coverage, underwrite loan and present to board. It's too static of an environment and I just don't see any long-term potential.
That’s fair. Have you worked in credit through a full business cycle? I assume we’re both talking corporate credit not consumer. That’s when credit gets interesting and you gain experience that truly adds value. You wont just be calculating coverage ratios at that point. And not just a business cycle. Sub sectors that you lend through obviously go through cycles and some are more cyclical than others. If you’re aware of all this and still think corporate finance is more interesting, then to each his own. But your typical FP&A role has a lot of mundane data aggregation, variance, and reconciliation type of work. Make sure you know what you’re getting into…grass is always greener.
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