Big 4 senior here, and have been looking to make a transition into an fp&a role. I've gotten two offers so far, and looking for some opinions on which one to take. Comp is similar between them, so not as much of a factor.
Offer 1) Financial Analyst role at a midsize (just over half a billion in revenue), would be doing forecasting/budgeting, customer profitability analysis, true fp&a responsibilities. Really like this job, but the company size and make up of the department makes me fear that there won't be room for growth. Would probably stay in this role for 2-4 years, then try to move on to a larger company with more growth opportunities and resources.
Offer 2) Plant Accountant (Cost Accounting) role with a multi-billion dollar manufacturing company. Would be responsible for a few of the company's plants, doing cost analysis and estimates, inventory costing, standard cost setting, and some general accounting responsibilties. Not too hot on this particular role, but the company size is the real attractive feature here. Would hope to do a couple years in this role, and then try to transition into a true fp&a role within the company. Obviously that's no guarantee, and I'm afraid doing more accounting work could make it even harder to transition later on.
So monkeys, what are your thoughts?
Take the "rebrand" in offer one. If you are looking to rotate out after a few years anyway the functional FP&A skills you develop outweigh the large company accounting experience in offer 2. You already have big 4 under your belt, no need to have another big name and accounting.
Plant Accounting/Warehouse Controller type of roles are super niche and may be difficult to make a transition.
I agree with everything mentioned above. FP&A is easier transition into various roles when re-applying as opposed to possibly pigeon holing yourself in Cost accounting.
I would suggest offer 1. It sounds like you'll have more flexibility in terms of your responsibilities and get to oversee more of the company's business rather than just a small piece of it. Be exposed to as much as you can. Even if there are no internal opportunities in the future, you can take what you learned to any other organization.
Offer 2 sounds like you'll be stuck in your defined position, where you're basically doing the same thing over and over again without being part of the bigger picture.
Offer 1 no doubt. If it's the type of work you want to do, that's where you should go.
Sounds like you're doing your best to evenly weigh both options when its pretty clear you favor Option 1.
What I'd add is on your statement about the potential for limited growth opportunities at Option 1. It's been my experience that smaller FP&A groups have offered the greatest opportunity for growth since you'll have much broader responsibilities (think covering the West Division of a sales group versus the entire business unit), you'll get much more face time with the businesses (great for networking), and you'll generally being dealing with more immature business information systems (SQL or Excel tables versus Essbase) which forces you to get very good at improvising and messing with data. I realize that last one sounds like a negative.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Makes this a lot easier to process getting some outside perspective. Now just gotta give notice to my firm without burning bridges (pretty damn close to busy season).
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