Are You Looking For A Finance Job Or A Finance Career?

Consider these questions and make up your mind on what matters most to you? 

• Do you look for a perfect job that matches all your skills and needed challenges or do you look for one with potential growth and career advancement?
• Would you rather work in a company in a job that fits your perfectly here and now but with no growth opportunities or a company with growth opportunities yet in a role that’s not an exact match? 

There are no right or wrong answers as such to these questions, but these were dilemmas I faced early on in my career. Since I’m now sharing my early career lessons learned then I thought this was an important one to tackle too. 

Here’s what happened… 

Back in the Summer of 2006 after having run away from a career in HR I found myself in a student junior controller role in a medium sized advertisement agency. It was a quite interesting role with a good number of challenges. That was especially due to frequent personnel changes meaning that I got to handle responsibilities above and beyond my job description already a few months into the role. In addition, I liked working with the team and the social environment was good. All in all, I was quite satisfied with my situation.

However, in the Fall of 2006 some four months after I started the role I stumbled upon an ad in a newspaper. It was Maersk looking for student assistants for a program they called “Students Only”.

Back then Maersk was the largest company in Denmark (both by revenue, market cap and results). Moreover, the company culture was almost mythological (at least to Danes) so I just had to give this one a go!

After two rounds of HR interviews I get the invite for an interview in Group Accounting with a VP and a General Manager of the department. When applying for this student program I had not applied for a specific position so frankly speaking I didn’t know what I was going into. Now here comes the dilemma…

“…as the role they offered me didn’t sound that interesting and probably wouldn’t make the best use of my abilities”

Here’s the question for you: What choice would you make? 

1. Turn down the job offer and remain in your challenging role albeit with limited growth opportunities or…
2. …accept the job offer trusting that once you’re inside the doors you’ll be able to make the most of it and grow into more exciting roles that’ll challenge you and offer you long term growth opportunities? 

Please note down your answer before you continue reading and be ready to post it in the comments at the end of the article. 

So what did I choose? 

Well, you probably know that I work in Maersk today so you’ll likely not be surprised when I tell you that I took the job offer! Three months into the role I had already showed that I could kick ass in the role and they moved me to a new Financial Controller role.

This role provided me with great challenges and learning opportunities. Not the least when in the annual accounts for 2008 I had the sole responsibility for a full six pages in the Maersk’s annual report!

In hindsight I have no doubt that I made the right choice at the time. Maersk has given me the opportunity to work on large complex projects, work abroad, have a huge impact on value creation and truly made me into the professional I’ve become today. Alas there were some troubles ahead of me in this role which I’ll dig into in the next career lesson next week.

Now I’m really curious to read about what choice you would make and why you would make that choice. The considerations each of us would make can be helpful to all young professionals who are about to start their career in Finance and Accounting. While these dilemmas are not unique to our profession they’re as much relevant to us as they are to everyone else. The choice is yours?

This was the third article in the series "My Early Career Lessons From A Decade In Finance & Accounting". You can read the previous article(s) below.

My Early Career Lessons From A Decade In Finance & Accounting

The Purpose Defining Moment In My Finance Career

You can read a lot more articles about FP&A, Business Partnering, and Finance Transformation below. It all start's with “Introducing The Finance Transformation Nine Box” where you set the ambition for your transformation. You should join the Finance Business Partner Forum which is part of the Business Partnering Institute's online community where we will continue to discuss this topic and you can click here to follow me on Twitter.

Your Journey To Successful Business Partnering Explained

How To Create Value Through Business Partnering

Everyone Can Adopt A Business Partnering Mindset (part of a six-article series about FP&A Business Partnering)

From Business Partner To Working Within The Business (part of an article series where I interview finance professionals about their careers in FP&A and Business Partnering)

Is Your Product Optimized For Value Creation? (part of a toolbox series where we look at what tools FP&A professionals should leverage to drive value creation)

How Business Partners Turn Analysis To Insight (part of case study series where I interview business partners about how they drive value creation using real cases)

The Future Of FP&A: Two Ways To Take The Reins

What Is The Accounting Profession Paradox?

What Defines A Finance Master?

The New Career Path For Finance Professionals

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

The CFOs Roadmap To Transforming Finance

How To Become A Finance Business Partner

Financial Analyst vs. Finance Business Partner

Finance Business Partner Is A Bullshit Job

How Business Partners Keep A Plan On Track

Anders Liu-Lindberg is a Senior Finance Business Partner at Maersk supporting our largest product and I have more than 10 years of experience working with Finance at Maersk both in Denmark and abroad. I am also the co-founder of the Business Partnering Institute and owner of the largest group dedicated to Finance Business Partnering on LinkedIn with almost 8,000 members. My main goal at Maersk is to show how to be successful with business partnering and drive value creation as a trusted partner. I am the co-author of the book “Create Value as a Finance Business Partner” and a long-time Finance Blogger with 37.000+ followers.