Project Control Career Path

I'm currently an FLDP at an aerospace/defense company in my first rotation, which is project controls. Boring as hell to be honest, though I feel like that has a lot to do with my current project (a repair program, so nothing exciting or interesting).

You have more time in program controls than I do, so I'll just offer my perspective from a big company (F500). The speakers/mentors we get (as members of the FLDP) always tell us to stay in projects after our rotations, because "That's where the jobs are" and because "projects bring in money, corporate is an expense". They say that you can't build a career unless you are in projects. While I think there is truth to that argument, I think that there is a conflict of interest in that advice. Working in projects deepens your knowledge of the company and your network at that company, and prepares you best for more responsibility at the same company. fldps struggle with retention because the participants join the program to beef up their resume and then jump to a better role. The leaders/mentors in the FLDP want us to stay in programs because it kind of "hooks you"- your network is with the engineers and others at the company who are probably never going to leave. Your experience is pigeon-holed to the industry you're in (for me, A&D). Corporate, on the other hand, is pretty similar across the board. I'm sure treasury/IR at my current company is very similar to treasury/IR at the company I interned for in a completely different industry. There is much MUCH more turnover in corporate than in programs because experience at one gives you the ability to jump to the others. In projects, I'm basically stuck in the same industry until I get into management and learn more widely transferrable skills.

In projects, we have a lot more "lifers" than we did in my corporate internship. I currently work with a ton of people who have never worked for any company but this one, and have done the same task for the last 20-30 years. It's not hard to appear driven in such a complacent environment. The down-side is that it's mind numbing and can destroy the drive of even the most ambitious people.

If you've survived 2 years with your motivation intact (I'm at 7 months and mentally dying- the light at the end of the tunnel is my next rotation starting in 5 months) then maybe you have more drive than I do and you have what it takes to move up in projects and get to management. If not, I'd start to try to see if you can get some FP&A responsibilities from your project-level FP&A group. Use that to try to transition to FP&A at your company, and then from there you can potentially change companies or corporate roles. I think that an MBA is a waste of money for such a transition, and using the "MBA bump" for such a small career change might not be the wisest thing. Hopefully someone with more experience can confirm.