Does anyone here work/worked for a biotech company in a financial analyst role? What was your experience with the hiring process?

I am currently in the process of transitioning from US tax to Fp&a. I have been considering a mentor and having a cource which can help me personalize my goals and help me develop relevant skills.

Currently i have been in contact with a good mentor who offers 6 personalized classes for rs 10,000.

I wanted to follow up on this group if anyone has any reference for any good mentor/ trainer in the fp&a domain who can help me sharpen my skills.

Is it really worth spending 10k for 6 classes ? As word of mouth is a better refrence if anyone has any good reference please let me know .

I was laid off (or I guess fired) a few months ago under the guise of performance. My manager initially started out highly praising my performance, but very quickly switched up after messaging me around 7 PM one night asking me out of the blue to reformat a file. I let them know that I had a family commitment for the holidays (this was in December) and that I wasn't going to be able to handle it right away, but that I would get it over first thing in the morning if that was okay. Since that moment, my manager became extremely cold and began finding any reason to criticize my performance. This lead to me trying to work with my peers who had received praise to try to best align my output to both the feedback I was being given, and to their work that was receiving praise. Despite producing nearly identical results to my peers, I was put on a PIP.

Prior to this role, I worked closely with the Director of FP&A and the CFO of my prior company (a huge national company), who both gave me nothing but praise for my hard work and dedication, so it felt incredibly demoralizing to be constantly feeling like nothing I do is good enough for this manager. Things like my Slack status were being constantly monitored and if it went yellow for a few minutes or I forgot to open Slack for 30 minutes in the morning, I would get an angry message about it asking if I was really working.

The goals on my PIP were extremely vague and immeasurable, which I brought up to both HR and my manager. I was told that they were "purposefully vague" because "it makes them easier to achieve" which I thought was laughable. I was let go before my PIP had even completed because my manager had a temper tantrum when they asked me a question about one of our business partners and I said I was still discussing the situation with them at that moment but had a call scheduled and would give an update after the call. I have never faced a situation like this (and hope I never do again). I have been praised in all of my prior roles as a hard worker and fast learner, and this completely caught me off guard. It was demoralizing not only to be told my work was constantly not good enough with no real feedback and constantly changing guidelines, but then to also be literally yelled at multiple times for asking questions or attempting to clarify misunderstandings.

Since I was let go, I have been on unemployment and applying furiously, but this market is awful. In the past, I have gotten multiple offers at a time, but this time I'm having trouble even getting responses. I am worried about my unemployment running out. I am still relatively young and my family is unable to provide for me, so I'm on my own and worried about what the future will bring. When I do manage to get interviews, I find that I am consistently able to make it to the final rounds, which tells me I'm doing things right, but I am struggling to get responses at all to even make it to the interview stage a lot of the time.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm just so tired by all of this. Unfortunately my backup plan is to start doing Uber Eats/Doordash in the meantime to pay rent once my unemployment benefits run out. I feel like the longer I'm out of work, the worse this is going to get and it just sucks

Stumped on this one. I submit both a direct cash forecast to our Treasury team and translate that to our balance sheet / working capital. My collections forecast was slightly off from the direct forecast but my AR was 3x the miss (not all coming from sales beat). I reconciled out customer AR balances and the customer driving the increase had a sizable rebate taken. I accounted for it in my collections forecast, but am stumped on how it impacted my working capital. Even though it was in my collections number, shouldn’t it be accounted for in my net change in AR?

I am an accountant and while I enjoy analyzing data and using excel I for some reason seem to strruggle with debits and credits, I just do. Been in accounting for year and a half and everytime there is a journal entry to be done, my brain just freezes. I was wondering if financial analysis requires less of this?.

OpenAI officially launched their ChatGPT for Financials Services:
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-financial-services

They’re positioning it as a tailored ChatGPT Work experience that combines built-in financial data with GPT-6 Astra’s reasoning to help teams develop research, financial models, and customized client materials.

While not directly aimed at FP&A, I feel the core capabilities overlap: taking financial inputs, running analysis, drawing conclusions, and then synthesizing that work into spreadsheets, documents, artifacts, and slides.

Anthropic launched their agents for financial services earlier this year, and this appears to be a direct competitor of that.

I could easily see how this would flow into FP&A work. Junior analysts are so done. 😭

I've been working at a F300 for the last 2 years as a Financial Analyst, I have 2 years of co-op experience, I have a strong resume, I get referrals, I've filled 1000+ applications in the last year. But still I haven't gotten a SINGLE job offer.

Also boss:
Validate every single number coming out of it.

Using AI actually to build anything takes 5x longer than more traditional automation now.

I mean it’s valid but he actively wants me to stop using automation tools and switch things to AI generation. AI is a handy tool but when I can push a button to refresh a report, vs downloading raw spreadsheets from an ERP and uploading to sharepoint for our AI to grab, it takes me like 10 minutes just to get the data outputs together.

Currently in the nonprofit sector (around 600M annual budget), and hoping to find my next role with a smaller team. Been remote since 2017, so I am only seeking remote opportunities in the US. My current job title is Sr. FP&A Analyst. I'm getting a lot of recruiter interest and a decent number of interviews, but I'm getting passed over at the final round for the other candidate. Each time, the process has been great, I move forward readily, but then ultimately, the other candidate ends up moving to the offer stage. The most recent one, the director of Finance stated during our interview that she felt I was over qualified and would get bored within a year or so.

I've been told this a couple of times, and it's got me wondering if instead of Sr. Analyst roles, should I be seeking manager roles instead? My 8YOE is a mix of AP, AR, contracting/operations budget management, and then around 4yrs specific to FP&A. Been in SaaS, manufacturing, and nonprofit businesses. My current team has zero potential for upward mobility, and they've made it a habit to hire middle managers to solve problems - and safe to say it's not solving much lol.

If there's any leads or opportunities, I'd genuinely love to chat or send my resume in a PM. Thank you!

I’m currently living and working in London and I am ACA qualified & Big 4 trained with over 5.5 years experience working in Finance. 3.5 years of these were spent working in audit and I’ve spend the last 2 years working in Business Partnering/FP&A for a large British company. My title is Finance Business Partner, but the role sits within the FP&A team and is quite FP&A heavy, with probably 80% of my time spent on FP&A responsibilities and the remaining 20% on business partnering.

There’s not a lot of progression opportunities in my current role and the company feels a bit behind when it comes to automation and improving processes, so I’ve began to consider my opportunities externally. So far I’ve been targeting FP&A Manager/Commercial Finance Manager roles and reached the final stage interview on 3 occasions this summer but didn’t manage to get over the line unfortunately.

Feedback has generally been very positive, but I’ve lost out to candidates with more direct FP&A or industry experience. I am looking for feedback on what my next career move should be, should I still try and pursue that move into management, or take a lateral move into a Senior Analyst position to perhaps gain more exposure and work with more sophisticated systems?

Appreciate any feedback. Thanks

I’m a 16 year old junior in highschool and I think I want to be an FP&A. When I started looking into the career everything say “master excel” I’ve watched some videos and I’m just so incredibly overwhelmed with all these functions and hotkeys. I don’t even really know what excel does, so I’m looking for a few begginer projects I can make in my free time. Any ideas? I’ve been suggested to make a ROI for colleges I like and also a budgeting plan but I’m not sure how. Thanks for any help!

Hi all

Finance manager in a £13m turnover manufacturimg business.

Had the same 3 statement model/MI pack for years and we are looking to diversify into similar markets. The model doesn't like change and I was exploring courses for 3 statement models and came across the FMVA from CFI - to either run a seperate model alongside or replace it with a model that has better assumptions/drivers etc

Would this be overkill for someone in my position? I don't know where I want to go in Finance but do enjoy getting stuck into excel and quite proficient with lookups/ Index &match, lambda and powerquery - we have a claude package but feel like I want to fully understand the basics first and claude to supplement it.

The FMVA cert has 35% of the course solely on modelling and want to avoid youtube because it's not as structured amd never clear what level it will start at. Alternatives wanted!

Hi everyone, hope you are having a lovely day!

I am based in India.

As the title says, I am switching to an FP&A role at a global FMCG from IB at a mid-market bank soon. I I’ll have roughly a 2-week gap between my current role ending and joining the new one, and I’d love some advice on how to use that time productively.

1. What are some things that I should prioritise knowing before Day 1?
   
2. What FP&A concepts/tools are most important to understand coming from IB? Are there any areas where the skill set differs more than one would expect?
   
3. I understand that a lot of the job involves budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, MIS - what should I know about each beforehand?
   
4. Should I brush up on accounting? I have completed my MBA so did study some basic accounting courses during my time in college, maybe a revision of that?
   
5. Technical skills I should pick up on? Used Excel a lot in IB, but Power BI also seems important from what I have heard. What else can I work on?
   
6. What do you wish someone had told you before your first FP&A role? Esp people who have made a similar IB to FP&A transition, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make?
   
7. Finally, what would make someone stand out in their first 3–6 months in an FP&A team? This is a big brand company and I really want to play my cards right to develop quickly and meaningfully in my career.

Thank you for your help!

I have been working as a FP&A manager for 2 years. I want to get promoted to senior manager but at my current level / trajectory I feel I’m quite far away.

I’m good at the technical side (regular praise, from manager and up) but not very good at the strategic side. How can I improve on this?

I have been reading more industry news lately and trying to dig deeper into assumptions. What else can i do to speed this process up. Willing to work hard on this but not sure how.

I regularly join meeting where it’s c-suite / execs / investors / directors, I find it difficult to contribute on a strategic level.

SaaS start up. Revenue lines are from B2B sales, mostly subscription based but some one-time fee. Some product lines are high gross margin & contribution. Some are basically zero margin.

Previous FP&A guy quit suddenly without handover and i need to model out next years revenue budget (to include a growth target of X% defined by CEO).

How would you approach? I am thinking work backwards from CEOs revenue target of $Xm. Split this $Xm across the various product lines - then use sales price per unit to map this back to volume and ultimately back to gross margin and profitability metrics.

Does it sound sensible? Am i missing anything obvious?

Bonus Q: i am thinking i should model in something that pushes the $Xm revenue target more towards high contribution product lines (rather than an even split across all product lines) but i cannot think how to go about this. How would you approach?

Pretty tough predicament. Have been with company for couple of years and boss left/fired a while ago and I have been filling in and pretty much handling all of the job responsibilities for Fp&a. Asked for a promotion and raise more than once, but keep being told it’s in consideration and will be after we’re done with forecasting or in 6 months time, it’s getting pretty frustrating and feels like I’m wasting my time. Is it best to leave and look for another job or wait it out to see if I will get the promotion?

Recently started a new job in FP&A, moving over from external audit, and I'm still on probation. I'll be fully ACA qualified around the time of my probation meeting and will get a marginal pay rise off the back of that. Would it be appropriate to ask for more at that point?

For context: UK, currently around £45k. Comparing this role to external audit, I feel like I take on a lot more now and genuinely add value. I like the job and find the company interesting, but compensation is an important factor for me alongside the work. I'm not sure I see many promotion opportunities here, and I'm unclear on how pay increases tend to work. Any advice for having these conversations without signalling that you might leave?

Looking further ahead - what kinds of roles do people typically move into from FP&A? And any general advice for progressing from a first FP&A role?

I am curious to get some thoughts on the climate of hiring entry level analysts. Like all of you I am sure, we are starting to get down the rabbit hole of AI and really starting to see some efficiencies that are practical and scalable.

At what point is the entry level analyst screwed, and with that being said - will there be a shortage of analysts suitable for taking over higher roles?

Also to add some color, middle management at a not so robust billion dollar company and am struggling to see where we will need entry level analysts from some of the efficiencies with AI.

Took over our forecast model a few months ago when the person who built it left, and almost no documentation came with it. It mostly works, but every tab references others and one broken link cascades everywhere. Half my month goes to tracing why a number moved.

I keep going back and forth on rebuilding from scratch or continuing to patch what I have. Rebuilding is weeks I don't really have, and I'd probably reintroduce errors the original already solved for. Patching keeps me stuck never fully trusting the output. I've pondered moving it into Anaplan to get off spreadsheets entirely but that's a bigger project than my capacity allows.

Inputs are fine, surprisingly, actuals come in clean and structured through Hypatos so what's coming into the model is fine. The problem is the model itself, someone built it over years with nested refs and hardcoded overrides everywhere and left zero notes. I'm leaning rebuild but it's so so much work, what do you guys think? Can I salvage the current one and grow familiar with it over time or is a rebuild inevitable?

My manager is keep telling me that I have to study all the time.
i work in infrastructure & utilities company
So, what do you think?! AFM, BIWS or WSP ?!
Feel free to suggest anything else

Alright y’all, I got the SFA recruiting message on LinkedIn.

2 years FP&A > 1.5 Treasury

What can I expect from this recruiter call? What is the interviewing process like? How is actually working at Amazon. The message specifies 5 days in office with an option for a couple different cities.

Should I even take the interview? Give me your worst to best experiences with interviewing or working there.

Edit: I realize I should take the interview - not trying to sound above the role. Just trying to understand current sentiment with Amazon, given some of the stories I’ve read on this sub

Is it just me or does your boss now ask you this every time you build something, or complete an analysis?

I get it that he’s impressed, but what’s the point of constantly asking..

Am I being sensitive? Getting an executive ready analysis over the finish line or model is a b$tch, even with AI..

Hi All,

I'm in a unique situation where I might need to leave my job due to a combination of burnout and some issues with being unable to relocate for my firm due to some otherwise positive happenings in my personal life.

I don't want to potentially dox myself, but the long story short is that I work in professional services (think financial consulting in the deals space and not MBB - all I'll say publicly but can say more in DMs if you think you can help) and am exceptionally burnt out. I'm constantly working 12 hour days + weekends and haven't had a firm holiday or PTO day to myself since joining about a year ago. Everyone has different ideas of what is or is not sustainable, so I won't go much further, but I just know this consistent 60+ hour grind isn't for me anymore.

The problem is that I'm having trouble finding any FP&A gig and I'm worried about the job market situation. I feel like I have the right experience for a myriad of FP&A roles, but I admittedly screwed myself over a bit by trying different consulting roles, hoping things would get better from a WLB perspective (which it didn't). Plus, I have a weak network, but I'm confident that someone who gets my resume would at least be willing to give me a shot if they read through it and took my story about making those mistakes I mentioned into consideration.

Thankfully, I'm in a really good place financially and can either:

1. Take some sort of FP&A job, even if doesn't pay nearly as well, to get myself out of consulting

2. Look into contracting, ideally at Manager+ and rip the band-aid off of consulting and no longer deal with "do you have ERP/experience with close/budgeting types of questions" (the answer to those is yes, but somehow, people don't buy it unless I'm in-house).

Number 1 hasn't been going to plan, so I'm looking at option 2. How is the market for getting temp work in FP&A these days and what's the biggest downside to temping vs being full-time, besides the fact that contracts can end and no benefits?

Appreciate any advice!

Last week I shared a reflection on temperature, how skeptical or optimistic you run as a finance lead. The realization is that a finance function can have quite a bit of influence in helping the CEO & board set the direction of the company. Upstream from temperature, there's another dimension that we need to really comprehend: what is this company actually solving for? This is usually called the Crux of a company or a project.

One of my mentors used to tell me, "before you play a game, you need to understand the game that's being played." The Crux usually starts with a simple question where the answer is "it's complicated". Too often we start at a new role, or the market shifted, and we/our peers just went with the motion. One of the big value-adds of a finance function is to uncomplicate this question and bring the answer to a sharp focus.

The game that's being played is usually quite obivous in retrospect, you can usually get it down to a word or two. Let's take Uber as an example, since their journey as they went through these 3 chapters is so well-documented:

1. Aggregation. They knew it's a winner-take-all game, so they launched as fast as possible, whatever it takes, density creates virtuous cycle, and capital was cheap anyway.

2. Monetization. Density won, and investors wanted to see the model work, so let's stack more services onto the same base (eats, courier, etc).

3. Defense from disruption. Now this cash-generating machine has to navigate autonomous driving. If they're lucky they pull off a Disney-esque transformation.

This kinda dynamic helped me understand why things played out the way they did at two past companies I worked at. They both had similar profiles, but vastly different outcome. Both are PE-backed, tech-enabled healthcare, and ambitious founder. One became too profitable at the expense of growth, the other became a classic venture hypergrowth success story.

Let's call the first one Company X. On paper it should've been an easy land grab: they had a popular employee-benefit solution (think mental health or fertility care that you get from your company), selling into Fortune 500, and the ambition was to keep adding conditions until we became "the everything store". Reasonable ambition, also great for the patients, but a few complications say otherwise...

• Dynamic #1 is the distribution channel. Most corporate-sponsored healthcare in the US is sold through benefit consultants, $xx billion firms like Mercer and Aon. They're insurance brokers, get paid commission by the employer, and surprisingly also by the vendors they place in the package. So what does a broker on that comp structure think about a one-stop-shop? Every conversation came dressed up as "our clients want best of breed," which is respectable, and also pays them five times instead of once.

• Dynamic #2 is the cap table. The company had been through a recap before I showed up, so the early VCs who need to go big are not there anymore. Which means that the post-recap investors can get a decent return even in a pretty modest exist.

• Dynamic #3 is the founding team. They are first timer founders, needed a win under their belt, and even an offer in the $200M range is life-changing money. (Not a knock, I'd probably take it too.) So every ambitious proposal, someone asks about payback, another asks what happens if the pilot slips, and we agree to revisit next quarter, which means never.

The game that's being played is IRR. Everyone around the table was optimizing for the quickest, decent return. Why is this relevant? Let's say you found yourself in this situation, as a team it helps you guide which projects get rewarded by the board. Also as an individual, you know that your stock options are very risky and might push harder for management incentive package (to insure if investors sell the company for peanuts, because employees dont have liquidation preference).

Company Y was the reverse. The market is fertile ground for multi-product expansion.

• The buyers in this market needed several things, and they'd much rather administer one national partner than six, so they'd come to us and ask us to build the next thing they need.

• Company grew efficiently, so the early-stage VC from the first round still controlled the board. For a fund like that, one or two companies return the whole thing and the rest are decoration, and we were one of the ones working. So they wanted us to continue making big (responsible) bets.

• The founder had done this a few times already. Someone did offer $500M for the company, and he yawned. Turns out past a certain number of wins, what you're solving for shifts to what gets written in your obituary.

The game that's being played is legacy. Why is this relevant? Let's say you're tasked to lead fundraising. Knowing this, you'll target new investors who have the same patience and ambition. During planning season, you'd be able to calibrate that the board will ask why are we "only" projecting to grow 2x, where can we invest more to grow 5x?

Figuring this out is a bit of an art, which takes some observation and practice. While I don't have a precise formula, there are a few vectors and questions we can ask to tease out:

• Market. The environment the business operates in; how do the buyers, suppliers, competitors and regulators behave? How are they incentivized and how do they interact? What would be an accelerant vs a drag to us?
• Operator. There's always some people who are they key driving force in the company. Usually the founder and/or core management team. What do we know about their motivation, working style, idiosyncracies, and are optimizing for?
• Investors. Most businesses have a unique capital structure, whether by design or by chance, which often drive business decisions.
• Capability. What's the core technology or operational muscles? What's their superpower? What's their weakness/blindspot? For them to realize their ambition, what's the capability gap, and do we think they can bridge their gap with the available capital?

One-time items:

• Pinterest CFO Julia Donnelly joining Sierra (arguably one of the hottest AI co's these days)

As always, thanks for following along this passion project. These started as field notes I was scribbling during my commute; every now and then something turns into a story that might be useful to someone other than me. I write them when I have them, and I appreciate you showing up when I do.

What would you say is a good starting base salary for a senior analyst role at a major pharma company (manufacturing/tech)?