TheGeneral
Confused about dryer sheets
- Joined
- May 3, 2005
- Messages
- 9
I'm 24, finishing my 2 year corporate finance training program with the mega-corp and looking for my next role with the company. I'm having trouble deciding what the best next step is for my career...salary and benefits are the same regardless of the job. All of these businesses are in different services segments. I'm really having a tough time deciding what is the best for my career...any thoughts?
1) finance analyst for a $500MM consolidated business
pro: focus on forecast/actual revenue, gross margin, and cash
pro: exposure to multiple product/service offerings
pro: I've worked for this business in the past so have some idea what to expect, the team is competent
con: they're reorganizing their already complicated financial model with many different sub-segments...could offer opportunities to improve or could get dragged into a quagmire
con: may be too high a level to really contribute to the operations of an individual segment in this group...less exposure to the details/fundamentals which I may need to get early on in my career
2) project analyst for a $100MM portfolio of projects
pro: good hands-on experience with the details of project accounting to build my technical skillset, which people say you should do early in your career
pro/con: haven't worked for this business or manager before, so chance to learn something new but more risk
con: financial processes are still very manual and systems are not well integrated/utilized, the business is trying to change but is not moving very quickly...could offer opportunities to improve or could get dragged into a quagmire
3) "mini" finance manager for a $20MM segment
pro/con: currently working for part of this business so I have pretty good idea what to expect, but not sure how much more learning I can get from this...business model is very simple so I don't know how much growth I would get from it. Essentially, I'm already doing this job, so would like a change of pace.
I'm sure the other question is: what are my long term goals? Want to build up my skills in operational finance and work towards becoming a finance manager. What job is going to make me most attract to an external employer if I ever decide to leave the mega-corp?
1) finance analyst for a $500MM consolidated business
pro: focus on forecast/actual revenue, gross margin, and cash
pro: exposure to multiple product/service offerings
pro: I've worked for this business in the past so have some idea what to expect, the team is competent
con: they're reorganizing their already complicated financial model with many different sub-segments...could offer opportunities to improve or could get dragged into a quagmire
con: may be too high a level to really contribute to the operations of an individual segment in this group...less exposure to the details/fundamentals which I may need to get early on in my career
2) project analyst for a $100MM portfolio of projects
pro: good hands-on experience with the details of project accounting to build my technical skillset, which people say you should do early in your career
pro/con: haven't worked for this business or manager before, so chance to learn something new but more risk
con: financial processes are still very manual and systems are not well integrated/utilized, the business is trying to change but is not moving very quickly...could offer opportunities to improve or could get dragged into a quagmire
3) "mini" finance manager for a $20MM segment
pro/con: currently working for part of this business so I have pretty good idea what to expect, but not sure how much more learning I can get from this...business model is very simple so I don't know how much growth I would get from it. Essentially, I'm already doing this job, so would like a change of pace.
I'm sure the other question is: what are my long term goals? Want to build up my skills in operational finance and work towards becoming a finance manager. What job is going to make me most attract to an external employer if I ever decide to leave the mega-corp?