hi, would some fund accounting experience help in the progress towards wealth management oriented roles? Personally I think it as least would not hurt what are your opinions on fund accounting as a job?
Although i see alot of people on the BS who started as a fund accountant, i personally think it is one of the shittiest jobs possible
Why is that buddha? I mean why is it shitty? Too repetetive?
hotdawg Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > hi, > > would some fund accounting experience help in the > progress towards wealth management oriented roles? > Personally I think it as least would not hurt > > what are your opinions on fund accounting as a > job? The job sucks but it will help you get those roles. Problem is that those roles won’t pay more than your fund accounting job. You’ll have to bring in clients to make any money at all.
I started out in funds accounting right out of college. I really didn’t like the job (daily reconciliations of mutual fund NAVs, yawn…), but it got me into a good company that had a lot of other departments. I ended up moving on to performance analysis, than onto investment consulting, and now I’m in the sell-side equity research department. The funds accounting job won’t count towards work experience for the charter (it didn’t for me), but if it gets you into a good firm with other areas you’re interested in, it could be worthwhile…
FA sucks hard…but it beats doing nothing
JRH, I have a question about investment consulting. The job title is pretty broad (at least to me), is it similar to performance analysis or is it more of a quality control/risk management position? What does it entail? Thanks
So the general consensus is that Fund Accounting sux, but it is a good place to start as long as you don’t do it for too long?
In investment consulting, I was part of the Investment Management Research group… We performed due diligence and wrote research reports on mutual funds and third-party money managers, and maintained a recommended list of funds and managers. It was a pretty cool job, met with a lot of buy-side research teams, mostly in NYC, discussing their investment processes and philosophies…
sounds like an interesting job, maybe i’ll try to get something similar when I grow up
When you grow up? How old are you? I was a fund accountant for a few monthes before I got moved over to pricing. Pain in the butt to learn and can be very tedious. On the upside, you will have have access to lots of financial information and have time to really follow the markets. This combined with meeting people in other departments in the firm could mean opportunities for you. I think you got the idea, take it if you dont got much else going on, work hard and try not to get stuck. GenY
Thank you GenY, this is the kind of answer I was looking for. grow up i mean careerwise 
Fund Accounting is straight up garbage. I only took the job, and would only take the job if I had been out of work for 6 plus months after graduating. Those people are zombies. If you take it get yourself prepared to exit after a year. Make sure you pass some CFA exams, nobody takes fund accountants seriosuly, it’s not even accounting because its so heavily automated. That being said has anybody been able to get fund accounting approved as acceptable work experience? Its obviously not, but the new acceptable job titles list gives me hope: https://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/getstarted/requirements/samplejob.html
I just had my work experience reviewed this past Fall, and my funds accounting job did not count towards the charter… not a big surprise
It would scare you how many FA’s used to get work experience approved. I think the term zombie is good. If you’ve ever seen Office Space you really get the idea. I think it sort of screws with your head. FA’s are a dime a dozen, and it is the epitomy of dead end job, I actually get quite depressed about it sometimes and wonder what the hell am I doing. I’ve decided to quit cold if nothing good comes up at the end of August when my lease is done, and hopefully by then I’ll have passed L3 and move somehwheres, likely Calgary and try and do something better with my life. It won’t be easy, but I’m not going to last here, I hate my job so much it hurts, and most (intelligent) people around me feel the same way about it.
Hey sickel2 what do you think a FA does, push a magic button and whamo…up pops an NAV, just like that out of thin air. If you don’t understand dual entry accounting you will not last one day in that job. From a post I wrote a while ago: "This is a third posting of my original post on this topic, although, its more geared towared making it to the front office, you still might find it useful. “This is a copy of a post I wrote a while ago that discusses fund accounting in the context of ultimately making it to the front office: If your looking at the sellside then I would think twice about fund accounting (FA). If, however, your aiming for a buyside junior analyst position, fund accounting is not the worst experience you could get and here’s why: If you want a firm to give you a shot as a junior analyst you need to already be working at that firm–they are simply not going to hire an outsider for that role, period. The exception is if you have an Ivy degree and can get into one of the associate programs fresh out of school–a situation I’m guessing your not in. And once your inside you need to be visible to the other analysts, PM’s, and the DOR (Director of Research). The easiest way to do this is to work in an operations role at a small shop. This is important because the smaller the shop the greater your chances of being asked to work on other projects, including, research, modeling, etc. But, in order to get an entry level BOM job at such a firm your going to need some kind of financial services experience. Investment firms rarely hire operations people fresh out of school and in many instances will explicity require experience as a fund accountant in the job desription. If you can get into a shop with your current resume then by all means make it happen and skip FA all together, but if not, its as logical a place to start as any other FS’s job, despite what others have posted. It will only pigeon hole you if you stay more than a year. The FA rule is one year and your out–preferably to an investment operations department. And contrary to what the other posters state you will learn the basics of the industry, be involved with markets on a daily basis, sharpen your problem solving skills, become an expert at bloomberg, factset, etc., get your CFA training paid for, understand the mechanics of various financial instruments, learn the dual-entry system of accounting, and develop strong organizational habits–these are all things that are very useful in equity research. Many analysts I know started their careers in ops or some other BOM type of role–its called putting in your time. Most people on this forum have a hard time grasping this concept. They will trash the BOM that works with a PM on a daily basis solving trade issues, while at the same time repeatedly send out resumes to every RA position that pops up on Wellington’s website–with zero replies! Bottom line: make sure you understand how the industry works and how new analyst positions are created and filled, you will be ahead of 99.9% of the competition if you do.”
Great post Equity Analyst, I think your analysis applies to a lot of BO/MO positions. Pay dues, work hard, and learn as much as possible and sieze oppurtunities as the present themselves. Being an FA and now a Pricing analyst has given me a lot of exposure, I hope can I leverage it into a research role as you described. Question: Do you really think its better to move to operations at a smaller firm and try to move up their, as oppose to just trying to move up at the large firm you are theorhetically already employeed at? Wouldnt switching firms be kind of s a step back if you are making a lateral move? GenY
thanks for the encouraging post equity_analyst, you are right about a lot of people talking trash about many BO/MO positions, while either being in one or not having a job at all.
Actually equity_analyst, my old FA job was so easy that it was data entry. It was push a button and whammo!- NAV. Now, given more complex funds are not that easy, but I was in a traditional bond group. Maybe things have changed since you were an FA or had exposure to it. I did work for State Street and I heard from people at IBT (which was bought by SS last year) that their system was not so heavily automated. I also heard that people at BBH had to learn how to do things manually in case there was a crash or something like that. CFA_Halifax, I know how you feel. Its natural for an intelligent person to hate zombie FA’ing. I used my hatred of FA’ing as motivation for the tests. Now I’m an L3 and my old boss couldn’t even pass L1. Given I’m sure he makes more $ than me now, but in 2 years time I’ll pass his chump ass and never look back. Seriously if you are content as an FA you are the walking dead. I think they used to accept FA’ing for work requirements. My boss started out as an FA (he’s 45 now though, this was 20 years ago) and he was surprised that they don’t accept it anymore. GEnY, I’d try to move to a better position at the company I was at now, especially in this environment. However, if you are at State Street (just a guess) I heard they aren’t hiring much at SSGA.
Thats what im thinking sickel, I do like the company I work for, and no, its not State Street… I hear the operations group is like a sweat shop over there. My buddy was a Portfolio Administrator their for twice weeks and got the hell out. As for the work requirement, I think the criteria of spending more than half your time as part of the investment decision making process is a strong clear criteria. fund accounting I dont think so, pricing is a little bit more of a toss up but still a stretch.