This is short notice but I just got an email for a quick call for today at 3:30pm for a Junior Treasury Analyst role. Hopefully it leads to a F2F interview. Would this relate to CFA experience or is it just “accounting”? I’m getting bored at my current company and anything else seems better. Any advice on what kind of questions to expect?
They are a public company in construction, engineering, metallurgy, etc. if that matters.
Here is the job description
• Ensure Divisional entity cash flows are prepared monthly (timely, accurately and complete). Work with Divisional Controllers to improve the quality of the cash flows. • Prepare monthly cash flow forecast via gathering inputs from multiple sources. • Consolidate cash flow information at the business unit level for inclusion in Management • Consolidate monthly AR and WIP positions from Divisional Entities. • Review and analyze Divisional Entity AR / WIP and ensure any aged items are adequately explained. • Ensure any unexplained items are investigated and responsibility has been assigned to resolve “problems” resulting in aged AR / WIP. • Manage, review, ensure, maintain, support (admin stuff)
EDIT: Also, any Canadians want to weigh in on salary? I googled and median is about $48k.
This looks like general cash flow accounting. It is not bad and can lead to more fun stuff, but it is what it is at the moment.
I’m not the CFAI, but I’d bet my Charter the CFAI would approve the experience.
Questions would not be too technical, this job looks to be assembling information for reports, presentations, and creating forecasts. I’m sorry to say it’s not M’n’A’in on the Buyside, but it wouldn’t be a bad place to get some experience. Treasury can be rather lucrative with CAPEX Analysis, Financial Capital Construction, liquid investment allocation, trust/endowment fund management, dividends/retained earnings planning, and so forth.
Questions I’d expect would have to do with percentage of completion, installment method, and cost recovery accounting/cash flow, depreciation and deferred tax assets/liabilities, and bank statement reconciliation.
I’d bet this first interview will be with a smoking hot hacksaw HR assistant (construction workers like their eye candy) who will know nothing about all of the above, so be sure you plug in the following items:
Cash flow and construction is a huge! Since payments are received via contracted milestones in the project, it’s imperative that timing is accurate to balance payroll and other accounts payable.
Materials in work in process will need to be adaquate, but not kept too low or too high as it ties up cash.
Cash and construction are notorious problem areas (IRS Vice here) so proper controls are required to be in place to keep everything compliant with GAAP. It’s also important to note that you do not seem to interact with AP.
And so on. I could go on, but I feel you have enough to make an impact. Be well lil cubby.
From the job description it definately looks to be more accounting. Most treasury roles I’ve seen are more market related, similar to running a money market fund combined with managing cash flow requirements of the firm (short-term interest rates, credit quality, liquidity, etc…), so even if you got that job I’m sure that aspect exists within the same department.
Think I f’ed up though. She sort of pressured me into telling her my current salary. I tried following numi’s and Twice the Man’s advice on this thread but I couldn’t say “I’m underpaid right now and I’m worth more”. Add to the fact that I don’t have any other offers yet.
I wouldn’t sweat it lil cubby. They want to simply check if it’s worth their time to pursue you. As long as you are below or within the salary range they have allocated, then you’ll be good. If you were way above or expecting way more than they paid, then they’d probalby ding you.
CFAI will bite on this if you word your stuff right. Treasury is a good place to be and this is your foot in the door. Where are you located, aprox, for salary? I’d guess we would pay in the $65k range for this, due to the forecasting bit. It’s more than grunt work AR. But we pay more out here and I’m at a top shop so YMMV.
If i may give you some perspective, you can also think of it as an opportunity to explore a position that you didn’t know about.
Many times we care so much about “is this the right position to get into finance?” or “will this fulfill the CFA requirement?”
I know these questions seem very important but the bigger picture is, what you can do right now for your career. Even if this job isn’t the ideal job in finance, doesn’t mean it isn’t a valuable experience in general. I would rather evaluate an opportunity by how much i can possibly learn and how much this opportunity can show my ability then to worry about filing for CFA requirement (which isn’t difficult to meet at all).