r/FPandA

Is anyone else finding the FP&A job market unusually difficult right now?

Last year, I was regularly landing interviews, moving through the process, and receiving offers without nearly this much trouble. Now it feels like a complete drought. I can apply to roles that closely match my experience and never even receive an initial interview.

When I do hear back, the process seems much longer and more competitive than it was before. I’m currently an FP&A Manager and have been applying to both Senior Financial Analyst and Manager-level roles, so I’m not limiting myself to a promotion.

For those actively searching, are you experiencing the same thing? Is this happening across FP&A generally, or does it seem more dependent on location, industry, or level?

Background

Worked in practice for 2 and a half years and this is my first industry role. I initially interviewed as as analyst but when they found out I had a offer from a IB they offered me a senior role and a 50% salary increase.

Company and role background

One of two major players in the UK retail space and turns over several hundreds of million. My role is responsible for several P/L lines and doing Month end, forecasting, budgeting, business partnering etc.

Intense start

I have been here 35 days and already have been given and done the following:

- Given 900k accruals to untangle that my predecessor caused and was a mess (actually completed this which the head of finance noted and was able to release to P/L)

- Completed ME for 2 of my line items within the first 2 weeks

Should be noted the models and files rely on several internal and external stakeholders, has cross currency, cross charges and the model is 10 years old. Also need to follow several processors for every QTF which I also had to do

- Given the Q2F to do

- Given the Q3F to do (weirdly only a month apart)

- Told to do Budget 27 for my line items, all the analysis, putting it in deck with supporting commentary which we attended the budget meeting with CEO this week

My manager

They have sacked several people this past year. When I was given the role I was told massive opportunity to learn and develop yet it feels I have to just DO perfectly first time with no room for error. Every 1-1 we have they expect me to be able to explain in detail every model I use and go in detail with the issues im having. The problem is its been so much information in such a short time I dont even know what im struggling with besides feeling dumb every time I speak to them.

They tell me to ask questions and oh our team is so open but every time I do they have this look on there face as if im a massive moron and is really sharp with me.

Is it me?

Is the start of this role normal? This has felt so intense and I never expected I would have been responsible for doing 2 forecasts and a budget within my first month when this is my first industry role.

I know with time I will be able to get there but they are putting me under immense pressure and have already mentioned my probation three times and said they need to see a real step up before my next probation meeting in a few weeks.

I am coming in for 8am and going home 6pm. I come home and all I think about is how im going to be terrorised again tomorrow. I can work hard and have done some crazy hours in my life but this amount of information, this intensely so soon is frying my brain.

Any advice or opinions will be appreciated.

Spent a lot of time in my career perfecting dashboards and getting them fully functional, displaying good data, and making it visually appealing and spending time analyzing them the way I like to analyze the data

Now we are using an AI feature through google gemini and now I no longer need to spend time making any sort of dashboard anymore.

Just noticing that we've had some changes in staff at my company and as a result we seem to be moving more and more away from network folders as a place where we do our work and onto Teams/Sharepoint sites.

Curious to hear common experiences amongst the group? Good? Bad?

So far we've noticed it's way easier for a small number of people to collaborate on a relatively small simple file but as that complexity / size increases and as the number of editors increases, edits get lost / rolled back without a clear understanding of why and no way to fix it other than re-doing it.

All of my budgeting and forecasting templates have been created by bottom up drivers (ie Revenue = Price x Volume, or expenses estimated by department heads). I have rarely ever used regression or forecast functions in excel. Where have you found them useful or required? I have used data tables to model out results based on sales increasing/decreasing x% or expenses and used those results against covenant calcs.

I’ve been in FP&A, particularly within tech companies in VHCOL areas my entire career. One of my peers is actively seeking fpa work on an older national retail company. Main reason is looking for a slower pace which includes lower comp. Less fancy benefits and perks.

Just curious, how true is this? As I get older, I don’t have aspirations for senior leadership positions. I’d like to consider other large companies if the tradeoffs really exist.

Has anyone here made the switch and did you notice that difference? Grass is always greener?

Our company got acquired a couple of years ago by a bigger corp out of state. Layoffs happened and we went from about 400 people to presently 20 in our current office. Most of the roles moved to HQ. We downsized from a 4 story building to just half of the first floor. This is my first corporate job out of college. My team is relatively small with just 4 people. The building lease is up and HQ has told us to permanently work from home. How would you guys take this? Should I be worried about my job?

I work at a mid size company, been here a bit over two years. Somewhere in the last year I got a lot faster at my recurring stuff and I never told anyone, mainly because I got lazy and kept researching how to automate my tasks, like our monthly variance pack which used to eat a whole morning, I rebuilt most of it in Cube, templated straight into the sheet and now it's maybe 40mns and half of that is me double checking it because I don't trust that it was that easy, and the accrual support docs, all those invoices someone used to key in by hand now just goes through Hypatos and their data comes in structured, Im assigned the supervision role in it and I get more time to check outcomes than I need to. None of this was "sly" type of clever nor groundbreaking in any way but as they say, give a lazy person a hard task and they'll find the best way to do it, and Im a very, very lazy person.

My manager still thinks these take as long as they used to so I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my spare time. Do you just say nothing? Deepen your analyses and improve quality? Ask for more tasks/roles and try to negotiate higher pay? Learn a new language? I feel a bit guilty for what's essentially working 4 hours and getting paid for 8, but Im also hesitant to say it because I dont want to be punished for being efficient

https://preview.redd.it/aq357e3666kh1.png?width=651&format=png&auto=webp&s=f41ea7205f6efd49aed328989a668e5c4d56f681

I'm looking for feedback on my resume as I work toward transitioning into a Financial Analyst role.

I want to know what i can improve on to make myself a stronger candidate. What are some certs, skills, projects I can work on to add.

Going forward, I plan to continue improving the dashboard I made. I was also looking into getting the FMVA and Pl-300 Power BI certs.

I am currently working as a Senior Finance Manager. Interviewing this week for a Finance Director position at my company. It would report directly to a market president with a dotted line to the VP of Finance. I’m interviewing with two market presidents at the same time.

I already work closely with one of them, we talk weekly or every other week as needed. The other I know less well.

I have a generally strong reputation at work, but want to make sure I nail this. Any tips specific to internal promotion interviews versus external ones. Any other key areas I need to focus on as I prepare for the interview?

Got an offer for FP&A Manager at public investment bank in Chicago for $140K base. Currently working Strategic Finance at a startup in SF making much more. Interested in moving back to Chicago which is why I am considering it.

What's it like working corporate finance at an IB? Are you looked down upon from the MD's or bankers? What are the growth ops from this role? Is earning potential high if you climb the ladder?

Hi Guys, I have two offers, wondering if anyone could give me some advice. I’m currently an SFA.

Both roles have the same base, similar bonus %.

1. Company A: Manager role (individual contributor), 3 days in the office, pro-rated bonus paid in June 2027

2. Company B: Senior analyst reporting to a manager, first year bonus is not pro-rated and paid in March, 4 days in the office

My dilemma is, the total comp between the two roles are very comparable. But my thought would be it’s better to get a title promotion in Company A now vs going for a lateral move in Company B and trying to get the promotion later on because that could take years. But some may argue that comp is more important than title in that case, company B might slightly come out slightly better given that bonus is paid 3 months earlier than A.

What are your thoughts?

Any insights on hiring manager questions? Should I expect technical or simply behavioral?

Hi everyone! I just started my first job out of university as a Big 4 associate in insolvency and restructuring. However, I’m slowly realising that it might not be for me and that I might enjoy FP&A more.

I previously had an offer for an FP&A role at a manufacturing company, but ultimately decided to turn it down to try out restructuring.

I’m wondering if it would be a good idea for me to stay in my current role longer and get a bit more experience before pivoting out to FP&A, or if I should jump ship now that I’ve realised it may not be my thing.

I’d also appreciate any advice on how I can pivot out to FP&A and what skills I should focus on if I were to stay a few more years in this current role!

Seeking help from commercial controllers - I’m still a newbie at my job as a commercial controller (FA level) - what questions can I ask my sales stakeholders to better understand the business?

Everyday that I go in I have anxiety due to the environment being quite fast paced and that I would be under PIP because I feel like I’m not doing enough and am not good enough. Today someone explained cut off provision to me and I didn’t quite get it too and I’m getting super worried now.

What are your tips to be a better controller? What are some basic understanding do I need?

Thanks!

Need help deciding on post MBA offer for Amazon L6 Finance Manager and PWC senior associate L3 ?

At my very big company the only one who has an office is the cfo and it’s not even a permanent office it’s just a meeting room he takes over for the day

For managers who get to review applicants first or alongside HR, who the heck are these hundreds of applicants that apply within the first few hours or days, especially for remote and SFA roles?

Are half of them qualified? A tenth of them? Are they dozens of international students who are unemployed or don’t live here? (You can assume the countries I’m referring to). Unemployed people from different lines of work who have to work remote for whatever reason so they spam any remote job?

Who really are these candidates? It’s discouraging to even apply anymore…

I work at one of these companies and I’m an analyst so obviously at the bottom. It’s hard looking on the career website because it just shows the base range without bonus and equity.

Coworker (same level as me) said director’s are pulling in 500-1mil in finance at my tech company. That just can’t be right (to high)

I’d imagine open ai vs Cisco vs Google all have pretty start differences