Career Paths

This is a post to help guide less experienced people (including myself). In another thread geo was talking about the hours of FP&A relative to the pay and benefits. I’d love hear from people on this forum with 10+ years of experience as to which career paths in finance have the highest compensation/hours. This could be a career path you see now that you would have taken for the work life balance had you known about it. Correct me if I’m wrong or add to this list. Let’s try to do it something like the below format and I’ll update this if the list grows. Please say Title (Average salary at ~10 year exp/average hours at ~10 year exp/if CFA is relevant) and why

  1. PM of Pension Fund (due to strict IPS requirements) (XX/XX/CFA Relevant)
  2. FP&A Corporate Company (~140k/45hrs/CFA Relevant)
  3. Treasury Analyst (~140k/45hrs/CFA Relevant)

Based on 10 years experience? I’d agree with your FP&A above, maybe up to $130-140k if a manager (which you could be at 10 years). Treasury pays similarly and is also CFA relevant. The great part about treasury is very little OT unless in the midst of a big deal. Can’t help you with pension fund PM stuff. My numbers above are based on offers I’ve seen in the last two years and I’m around 10 years exp now. An important part of the analysis is also the attainability of the position. Its real hard to become a big shot PM. If you’re of average or slightly higher than average intelligence and hustle, managing a corporate FP&A group is a pretty reasonable expectation within 10-15 years experience. Salaries of course are relative depending on geography and industry. My quote for the FP&A salary was oil and gas, which pays best of all industries. You won’t see as much in telecom or something like that. That’s all I’ve got. Other than that while money is a factor, you should pursue what you love to do in order to have success. If you’re not really into your career, you’ll struggle to advance.

According to Robert Half Canada, an Assistant Treasurer for a large company will do up to $140K per year plus bonus and an Assistant Controller will be about the same (which is where I’d rank a FP&A manager). So my numbers are in the ballpark according to the salary guide. (http://roberthalf.com/salary-guides). The salary guide suggests a bit lower for non-managers but that may be due to my geography.

I like the way this thread is going. Something along those lines I would like to see is maybe people couild post their own career path and salaries at each position and how long they were there so we can see how the advancement process works. ie

Position A- 2 years $50,000

Position B- 3 years $60,000

Position C- 10 years $75,000

Position D- 5 years $100,000