which of these two paths are better...government bank examiner or aerospace?
I currently work at an aerospace manufacturing company(not the big name ones) doing a very particular role. I know the word aerospace sounds prestigious and can help on a resume. My current role is a lot of data entry, a little analysis, and a little bit focused on costing and estimating. Basically we manufacture parts for military contracts and the big names(Boeing etc), but how should one price this stuff in a competitive but effective way? (This is where I come in) it's much less complicated and a bit tedious and way less interesting than it seems but I get paid decently and it's pretty relaxing. I can also have exit opps to decent aerospace company as the industry is small and there's people from big names coming every month to check out our processes.
I recently got a state job offer for a job I had applied to months ago with the state to work as a bank examiner. I'm not sure of the particular tasks but it's something to do with making sure banks are following all the regulations and analyzing their financial statements. I'd be taking a paycut and also moving to one of the most expensive cities in the US.(think NYC expensive but not NYC). The pay is 57k which is poverty over there. But I feel like the skills are very transferable and there's good exit opps. I don't know what the job will be like until I'm there but from reading the training there's CAMELs bank analysis. I'll also be looking at Condition and Income (Call Reports) and Uniform Bank Performance Reports (UBPRs). I know I will be looking over banks and analyzing their statements. If anyone has done something similar is this role interesting or boring? I know there's lots of travel involved which I like.
Which of these two jobs sound better to keep? On the one hand I'm comfortable in my currently role but I feel there isn't growth, on the other hand the other role will surely have me struggling with that pay, but the benedits and pension are great and I have gauenteed raises. I've been a ball of stress trying to figure out which role to take. Has anyone worked as a bank examiner? Or have any insights?
wsonewb, sorry there are no responses yet. Maybe one of these topics can point you in the right direction:
You're welcome.
I have never been an examiner, but I can tell you from working on the bank side of the equation that the examiner job (particularly at an entry level and even more particularly for a state regulator) would be absolutely, positively brain-liquifying. I say all this based on the following observations:
Analyzing financial statements is not what you're going to be doing at least not in the way you might understand. This might be some component of the job, but you will not be the person writing reports about the balance sheet, income statement, etc of banks operating in your state. You'll be doing due diligence on their loan portfolio, but not for purposes of valuation - you'll be testing for safety and soundness. This means you'll be looking into their credit files to determine if the banks have current financial statements on their borrowers. You'll be assessing whether or not the analysts in the bank adequately underwrote those financial statements and documented the relevant risks. You'll be determining if the overall loan loss reserves are consistent with historical loss ratios given the risk ratings assigned. Mind you - you are not conducting any of these analyses yourself - you are just looking at the work done by others to determine if it was adequate. You'll be examining processes to determine if the bureaucratic structures in the bank are consistent with their risk appetites and if they are adhering to their own policies and procedures. Only way to do that is to look inside their loan files.
To the degree that you're looking at financials, it will be to assess earnings quality in the sense of whether or not the earnings are commensurate with the risk as analyzed through the above activities. The rest will be operational risk assessment such as liquidity and capital adequacy... but again, none of this is like a "research opinion" where you come to very fancy conclusions; you're just stating "pass/fail".
The biggest reality is that as a state examiner, you are really playing second fiddle to the national examiners and going to piggy back off of what they do or require. Because this is really non-innovative, my experience is that you will have as colleagues people who don't want to really think creatively or work very hard. This is just a job and the caliber of people is going to be fairly low (excepting some in the agency who are senior level and might be pretty sharp). Remember - no matter what they tell you they do and how thorough and impressive it is, regulators simply CANNOT oversee all the things that banks do. If they could, they'd consistently get in front of problem banks. Because they don't, you have to accept that most of your large banks have a consultative relationship with their primary regulator (again, not the state agency). The smaller banks you'd be working with are much more subject to regulatory oversight but that means its an open book test and they just do the plain-vanilla boring things that regulators wont blink an eye at. You'd be doing a lot of those checklists.
Maybe your current job isn't the sexiest thing there is but at least it sounds like you can engage your brain to some extent and have opportunities to move up/out in the world. Plus you're not giving up pay to get into a state system with limited upside.
If you were to stick with the regulator for the long-term, you might have very lucrative exit opps but it would take you a LONG time to achieve that kind of seniority and you'd ultimately be limited to working with small, state-chartered banks. Moving into any kind of senior role at a major firm would have to have you coming from the Fed, FDIC, or OCC.
Again - not based on direct experience. I just work on the bank side and see what the regulators (from the FDIC/OCC/etc) push down on us and it's primarily NOT prudent risk management practices as much as it is compliance and procedural assessments. Nobody has EVER, EVER said (at the banks i've worked at) "We have to do this to satisfy the [state] Department of Financial Institutions!" Maybe they do at smaller banks. But to answer your question, working with aerospace contracts with billion dollar price tags is 100% more fun than what smaller, community banks do on a daily basis.
Et hic tenetur delectus est id. Non architecto optio ut id sit. Fuga cum labore occaecati reiciendis aperiam error qui. Ut molestiae aperiam eligendi eum quaerat alias rerum.
Vel a fugiat id quaerat sed inventore et. Et qui ut aut aliquam enim expedita. Nostrum minus id cum dolor delectus ut dolores.
Dolores ducimus accusantium eligendi. Tenetur libero architecto ullam distinctio. Dignissimos quod libero ratione ratione impedit perferendis. Nihil animi quisquam iste soluta deleniti maxime natus cum. Enim harum quos eveniet magni. Laudantium sed qui voluptatibus ducimus soluta in cumque. Ab ipsum et excepturi eos odit quia aut inventore.
Aut itaque amet qui qui. Dolore suscipit aut temporibus quisquam a quaerat suscipit voluptatem. Suscipit rerum voluptatem omnis sit impedit ex. Voluptas sed quaerat quia.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...