Credit analyst vs Fund accountant

Hello,

Im currently studying for lvl II and my long term objective its to work in investments funds , i.e portfolio manager. Ofc this is a objective most of us have, but not many reach it. At the moment I have two jobs offers, one as credit analyst for auto industry and the other as fund accountant for a well known bank. Which offer do you think have the most potential to boost my cv in order to reach my final objective? I believe as a fund account, even if its inside the industry, the job itself is very limited and doesn’t allow you to do financial analysis as required in the credit analyst role.

Hope you can help me.

kind regards

DO NOT TAKE THE FUND ACCOUNTING JOB.

^ +1000

this isnt even a real question. And this is coming from a fund accountant. Dont even think about it, credit analyst

the CFO at our fund was a fund accountant so was our controller. The CFO made just a hair over million last year and the controller made 120k + 100% last year.

Yeah but how much did your CIO make last year? You should compare people with similar seniority.

the cio is the president of the fund. can’t compare but i get your point.

my main point was that fund accountant isn’t the end of the world and front office is not be all and end all. the cfo is in his mid 30s and the controller is in his late 20s. i don’t care where you live…the cfo is doing well for himself.

Yeah your CFO and controllers are killing it for sure, I think people also need to think about whether they would prefer the work of a CFO or someone from the direct investment side though because that can make a huge difference on longevity of their careers.

I mean its possible to hustle your way out of it, which I am in the process of doing with an exit time of a few weeks pending an offer. Tbh its not really hard to stand out in fund accounting as half of the people are idiots. That said I think a safer bet to a better career would be credit analyst. Tons of people get stuck in fund accounting and never make the jump to controller/CFO

yes, true. Rather be credit analyst and aim to jump to fixed income or some high yield analyst role.

yup, thats the more interesting route work wise I would think (assuming most people here want to analyze investments, which isnt always the case)

And I am certainly not one to crap on fund accounting, or BO in general. The work is pretty dull but it still pays a lot better than plenty of other jobs average people can get.

does a credit analyst profile qualify as relevant job experience ?

anything and everything qualifies to cfa. they love to collect your annual dues for the next ~30 years.

Even auditors and plain accountants have the charter these days.

Yes

@Yayywork Just out of curiosity, how did you get the exit opportunity? I’ve been pigeonholed in accounting & auditing given that I have a CPA for a couple of years now and getting started w/ the CFA as a tool for networking.

through a recruiter and a bit of luck. Told her i wasnt looking to do straight fund accounting anymore, also preferred small team where you can get your hands dirty in a bit more stuff. She send me over a few hybrid BO/MO gigs at some places some i was interested in some I wasnt, this gig is somewhat similar. Bit of accounting, bit of finance kind of jack of all trades. If you are in the NYC area I can connect you with the recruiter I used. Was pretty good about not bothering me about stuff I wasnt interested in