u/cartersweeney

Hello all

Am in the UK and noticing lately that the "business partner" buzzword is creeping more and more into job titles and specs. I see it in basically every advert I look at at my salary range (I am a mid level CIMA qualified management accountant who has only ever worked in industry).

I feel like this is putting me at a disadvantage as frankly the term conjures up images of whole days spent in meetings presenting pie charts to various departments and trying to persuade them to do or not do various things. I don't mind a bit of this but it seems most whole jobs are now portending to be structured around it and to be honest it's not my cup of tea. It doesn't suit my personality and strengths at all.

I even got told by one of my old bosses, "you could not be a business partner... you'd be exhausted".

My last 2 roles have both been sold as "business partner" roles but in reality there has been very little of it, I've mostly just put together P and Ls and then gone over them with the business... to me that doesn't feel like business partnering, just normal accounting.

So I am suspicious that all these roles I am seeing would also just be more or less this in reality but for the sake of the interview I have to feign an interest in spending all day in meetings trying to basically run the business... even though my experience is that in reality businesses generally want accountants to stay out of the way and just report the results after the event in reality. If you take the job adverts literally it looks like 90pc of businesses are essentially run by accountants.

.

Not quite sure where to go now , as I am not happy in current role but also I am probably not going to make it in a job that involves this kind of thing which is seemingly now compulsory...

Unless I'm just overthinking it and "business partner" is actually meaningless corporate waffle that just means "talk to people about numbers".

Hello all

Am in the UK and noticing lately that the "business partner" buzzword is creeping more and more into job titles and specs. I see it in basically every advert I look at at my salary range (I am a mid level CIMA qualified management accountant who has only ever worked in industry).

I feel like this is putting me at a disadvantage as frankly the term conjures up images of whole days spent in meetings presenting pie charts to various departments and trying to persuade them to do or not do various things. I don't mind a bit of this but it seems most whole jobs are now portending to be structured around it and to be honest it's not my cup of tea. It doesn't suit my personality and strengths at all.

I even got told by one of my old bosses, "you could not be a business partner... you'd be exhausted".

My last 2 roles have both been sold as "business partner" roles but in reality there has been very little of it, I've mostly just put together P and Ls and then gone over them with the business... to me that doesn't feel like business partnering, just normal accounting.

So I am suspicious that all these roles I am seeing would also just be more or less this in reality but for the sake of the interview I have to feign an interest in spending all day in meetings trying to basically run the business... even though my experience is that in reality businesses generally want accountants to stay out of the way and just report the results after the event in reality. If you take the job adverts literally it looks like 90pc of businesses are essentially run by accountants.

.

Not quite sure where to go now , as I am not happy in current role but also I am probably not going to make it in a job that involves this kind of thing which is seemingly now compulsory...

Unless I'm just overthinking it and "business partner" is actually meaningless corporate waffle that just means "talk to people about numbers".