I am currently a FP&A at a commercial bank, but work with forecasting numbers for auto loans, so the experience doesn't really translate to high financial jobs. I want to go into PE, but no target school so no real shot at that unless I go to get my MBA from a top 10, and even after that I'm not coming from IB experience.
Career Resources
Career Advancement Opportunities
August 2026 Investment Banking
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Evercore 01 99.5%
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Moelis & Company 01 98.9%
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JPMorgan 01 98.4%
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Morgan Stanley 08 97.8%
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Goldman Sachs 02 97.3%
Overall Employee Satisfaction
August 2026 Investment Banking
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Moelis & Company No 99.5%
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Evercore No 98.9%
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Morgan Stanley 01 98.4%
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Banco Santander 02 97.8%
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BMO Capital Markets 12 97.3%
Professional Growth Opportunities
August 2026 Investment Banking
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Evercore 01 99.5%
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Moelis & Company 01 98.9%
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Morgan Stanley 06 98.4%
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Goldman Sachs 01 97.8%
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JPMorgan No 97.3%
Total Avg Compensation
August 2026 Investment Banking
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Vice President (16) $429
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Associates (50) $259
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3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
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2nd Year Analyst (25) $178
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Intern/Summer Associate (14) $159
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1st Year Analyst (84) $151
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Intern/Summer Analyst (75) $101
16 IB Interviews Notes
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From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship
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I love my FP&A role. I work at a $100m tech company and we are responsible for all forecasting, analytics, budgeting etc. We are also lead on all deals and work direct with the cfo and ceo. We are a 2 person team, and were a 1 person team for several months. Great exposure at smaller companies and have full visibility into the company.
I'm curious- what does comp look like at a small company like yours? What is the next step up for you? I'm assuming there isn't as much of a hierarchy (analyst, senior analyst, manager, director, VP, etc). Not trying to pry too much- comp and structure is readily available for large companies, but I dream that I could jump to a decision-maker role at a smaller company and grow my career and comp with that company.
Unless you have some elite networking your chance at PE is slim to none. Your experience currently just doesn't support the flow into PE.
Why do you want to go into PE? Is it just because it sounds sexy?
Exit Opps for Trading FP&A (Originally Posted: 06/27/2013)
I work in the FP&A group for a commodity group at a Fortune5 oil company. What are my exit opps? I've been at the company 2.5 yrs now right out of college.
I know MBA is an option but I was curious to know what else I can do out there. I've done some fundamental analysis within the group helping the traders understand which businesses are making money and which strategies need to be abandoned. The job is not your typical FP&A because a lot of our analysis is market related and analyzing how market volatility has impacted the bottom line is a huge part of the job
I'm going to apply for B-Schools this season but I just wanted to know if I should consider part-time MBA and pursue career opportunities instead of just going full-time.
Any insight is much appreciated. Thanks.
Financial Reporting & Analysis or Financial Performance & Analysis?
financial performance
Depends what you want to do, personally I would look for an energy start-up in texas and go for broke
Does anyone notice people move from FP&A to other parts of the business? (Originally Posted: 09/04/2016)
maybe it's just my industry, or perhaps more specifically, my company, but it seems many eople who started in FP&A or commercial finance roles actually move to other parts of the organization. sure, some go into M&A or strategy but i've seen many others move into somewhat different career paths including marketing, market research, etc.
anyone else notice this? i am finding that being involved in the budgeting and forecasting as well as just meeting with all of the teams, the FP&A roles can be somewhat all-encompassing and if you take the time to learn, you can really start to understand the thought processes of other teams.
feel free to chime in and call me a dummy, but just something i've observed.
I haven't noticed it at my place, but I have at some of my friends from grad school.
A number have started in Finance (Planning and Analysis) and moved to either marketing, quality or operations roles (with operations/process improvement being the biggest of the three).
I have yet to see anyone go the other direction.
interesting. how do those in operations like it? i've been thinking of making that move a year or so down the line.
Depending on the industry and size of the company, a good path is FP&A, to business, to business unit CFO. Obviously there a couple of spots in between business and business unit CFO.
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