Can you pivot from fund accounting to corporate staff accounting?
Starting out in fund accounting can make new graduates worry about being locked into a narrow career path and losing out on interviews to people with in-house or big four experience. Transitioning to a corporate staff accountant role becomes difficult when employers favor candidates with direct industry accounting experience over fund administration backgrounds.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Working in fund accounting for a short period of 1 to 3 years before transitioning to avoid getting stuck
- 2Sticking it out through the grind to reach the top of the fund accounting path
- 3Applying to as many jobs as possible
- 4Sitting for CFA level 2
- 5Attempting networking through previous Big Four and alumni contacts
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Is it ok for new graduate to accept the only offer fund accountant? Plan to work as 10 month and pivot to staff accountant. Is it good? Can I pivot from fund accountant to staff accountant?”source ↗
“While I have gotten a respectable number of interviews, I have found that I am being beaten to these jobs by either i) people who are coming from the big four, despite me having already worked at the big four before, in financial services as well, or ii) people with previous in-house or fund administrator experience. I am really not sure what to do to improve my odds.”source ↗
“I am afraid I will be locked in this field ever”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 18Does starting in private accounting ruin your career?
- 14Is moving from accounting to corporate finance too stressful?
- 2How to convince my boss to move from paper to digital accounting
- 7How to consolidate multiple LLCs without Excel
- 3How do you set up a manual journal layout for budgeting and net worth?
- 3Why does managerial accounting feel so confusing at first?