Hi all, I am trying to help figure out some information for a friend in a job he is interviewing for. It is essentially an "FP&A" role at a F500 company. However, this FP&A role doesn't work with any of the product or project lines, it just does FP&A for corporate functions like HR/IT department and the like. From looking at people's LinkedIn's, it seems to be heavy with journal entry, reconciliations, reporting consolidation, and variance analysis. I can't imagine any strategic forecasting work (or worthwhile variance analysis even) when you're essentially just planning for an overhead department...
Is this position a waste of time? He has some other interviews on the table and would rather not waste his time if this role will not develop any skill-sets useful later on.
if you think about the areas fp&a can actually influence, it primarily revolves around expenses. The functions still have a budget, require forecasts and have their own initiatives. The metrics will be different (ex: time to hire, cost per hire) for HR. Most companies also push out these costs to the businesses which can be interesting and will likely give you exposure to each business.
Strategic forecasting and meaningful variance analysis are vague and frankly, I'd bet you don't actually understand what you're asking. Does fp&a ever do journal entries?
Fp&a Intrinsically isn't the most interesting job though and there are often better places to start.
Hi. I admit that I don't understand these jobs too much, as I have yet to enter the workforce (hence I'm here asking people). So are you saying that this FP&A position is a typical one? I've heard that certain FP&A analysts (for example in consumer goods companies) work with sales forecasting. That seems much more interesting. Also, this company certainly doesn't push out the overhead costs to its businesses, as its corporate functions are registered as a separate company under the same namesake.
What would you think is better than this? Big 4? He has an interview for Big 4 TAS and Valuations, just trying to weigh options here.
Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) is the process of compiling and analyzing an organization's long-term financial strategy. FP&A departments also generate management reports, analyze financial trends, calculate the monetary effects of potential business decisions and advise company leaders.
At some companies, FP&A will take on the M&A function.
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