I am in need of some advice. Quick background on me -
I was previously working for a lending company and thrived there. I kicked a** on a daily basis and was universally respected. And the work wasn’t easy - lots of complex excel modeling, complicated math, and ‘outside the box’ thinking. However, the boss (president and owner) was cheap and I was literally making 34k per year. So I decided to leave for corporate finance.
No one told me corporate finance was basically glorified accounting! If I had known that, I wouldn’t have transitioned to corporate finance! I read the words ‘Financial Analyst’ on job description and assumed it was like my previous role.
So long story short, I wasn’t doing well in my new role, I was basically asked to resign with a one month deadline. I was desperate not to have any gaps in my resume, so I landed a similar role at a different company hoping it would be different. Now I am again not doing very well and can read the writing on the wall…
I am not an idiot, I have already succeeded in a difficult role at a lending company. However, job hopping a huge red flag! My previous two positions have lasted 18 months and now maybe 12 months!
I am a good financial analyst but will always be a terrible accountant. I need to stay employed, I have rent to pay, but I don’t want to be flipping burgers at McDonalds I am almost 30!
Some friends suggested lying on my resume, but I am very reluctant to do that for obvious reasons. Again, I have good skills to offer. I am an Excel ninja who can do basically anything (again, building insanely complicated excel models from scratch) What do I do?? Please help!
in retrospect, that would perhaps have been wise. However, I was afraid of entering the job market with an employment gap after a short duration, so I decided it was best that I jump to this other position and hope for the best. I felt that it was the least worst decision I could make. I was hoping to stick around for a couple years to have an “anchor” on my resume before maybe moving over to financial services. This is still my goal. Don’t want to lose this progress so far and start at an entry level position.
miss Cleo, I wish I was analyzing statements! Instead, I have dealt with credits, debits, and operations. Moving money from one bucket to another to “look as good as possible” without doing any actual productive work. That and monthly reporting.
I am terrible at operations. Again, we have our strengths and weaknesses but I felt like I didn’t seek out this situation…why this type of work is called “financial analysts” is something I will never understand.
What you did is not corporate finance at all! I think you were very unlucky.
I think you have 3 options now:
1- Call your old employer and see if you can go back there - only if you left on good terms
2- Try to find a job similar to that job or something doesn’t need much accounting
3- Try to learn accounting! and have a conversation with your current boss that you only need to improve your accounting skills and you will. Try to study for CPA or any relevant courses
How are you screwing up specifically? Are you making errors? Do you just not understand accounting? Do you not have good excel/vba skills? Are you more of a relationship guy than a numbers guy? You should explore your strengths and try to find a job that fits that mold rather than chasing a job just because it sounds sexy.
I would say you’re screwing up because you are not interested in your job rather than its beyond your capacity. If you know VBA I’m certain you can do anything with accounting. Buckle down, apply yourself, an be a good accountant. That will buy you some time to search elsewhere for what you really want to be doing.
Also I’d have a one-on-one with your manager to reaffirm your committment and your plan to do a better job in the future. It could save your job. Good luck.
there’s basically no point in ever quitting unless have another job lined up. let them fire you, collect unemployment, then don’t mention the termination in future interviews. your previous employers are also legally barred from discussing your termination with future employers.
As with anything, you can get better with practice. Have you thought about taking online accounting courses? Grasping accounting is something that just takes practice, kind of like learning a new language.
It is NOT illegal for a former employee to indicate that you were fired if you were fired for a legal reason. It is very rarely illegal to state a correct fact unless doing so violates a judge’s orders or some type of nondisclosure agreement. Most employers won’t officially say you were fired though because they’re afraid of being sued for defamation, so they just confirm dates of employment. So, even if your former employer plays it safe and just confirms dates of employment, you’ll still have a hole in your resume that you’ll have to explain. Unless you are willing to outright lie, prospective employers will be able to figure out that you were fired based on your BS answer to the question: “So, why did you leave your former job?” If you’re in a fairly tight industry, they probably already know that you were fired because they likely know enough people at your old job who were willing to talk off the record.
Let me be a little more specific. I left my last job after 18 months, I may lose my current one after ~11 months. My resume practically screams out ‘job hopper’ and I’m afraid I may be unemployable. I may have to settle for some temp job making $15/hour. I am afraid of losing all of this progress and starting from scratch when I just graduated school with no experience.
What I was hoping for was to build an anchor on my resume (2 years experience w/ the same company) and move to a better suited role from there. Something that doesn’t have any damn operations like a bank or insurance company. This is becoming more and more unlikely because I need solid existing experience to move forward.
I left my old employer on good terms (the lending company) but already checked and nothing is open
I am trying to improve. However, the job is very operations oriented. I am not good at this. Problem is my reputation is already damaged because I am considered to have a ‘lazy attitude’. I am simply not good at this. What appears difficult to many people is easy to me, but things that appear easy to most is something I struggle with. I am working with a lot of accountants and we speak a different language. For example, I suggested using a weighted average adjusting for probabilities in a sales pipe and people looked at me like I was crazy. I do not connect with the people here.
I am screwing up because I am not an operations or accountant person. I am trying. We just speak two different languages. I am trying.
I do not know what to do. I do not want to be considered unemployable by future prospective jobs. I don’t know what to do.
I felt the same way as you in my last role. It was very operational and that is something i struggle with. I guess it just didnt keep my interest. I wanted to leave after being there for less than a year but suprisingly i stuck it out for three years. You need to have a come to jesus talk with yourself and change your attitutude. If you think youre too good for this job it will come through and people wont like that. Be positive and try to make a difference and improve effeciencies anywhere you can. Try learning to code in vba so you can stream line thinsg for people as well as lock in your value. I bet most people you work with dont know how to code and if you do they will need to keep you around to maintain their reports. Good luck, stick with it for several years and keep a positive attitude.
Thank you for the advice PH. I am hoping I can stick around long enough to find something. Don’t know if I should just quit or not. I feel like its already too late for me.
90% of what I do is operations related. A lot of people have an interest in operations and that’s great, but this is just not something I connect with. I don’t know what I will do if I’m fired.
Is there such a thing as ‘entry-level finance’? I cannot go to IB since I don’t have an MBA. I saw some borderline-skecky prop trading company online. Do it yourself training @ home and then trade online. They are implying big profits for 10-20 hours per week of work seems way too good to be true.
Other than that, trying to tap my sources and get some traction. But if you saw my resume, the short durations are killing me. Everyday I wish I just stuck with that lending company, I was making peanuts but had job security and took PRIDE in my work…
Garnolopis422, I feel your pain man. I’m exactly the same way. Markets, asset allocation, and financial modeling make sense to me (which operations people find difficult to grasp). Operations/IT and coding does not. I unfortunately work in an operations group and have been banging my head trying to get out of here for months. Getting level 3 results next Tuesday but at this point, I’m so discouraged from being in ops I don’t even care. What does 3/3 matter when you’re making peanuts in ops.