Pros
1) Large global corporate structure with many available job opportunities. The majority of Finance job roles (Tax, Treasurers, Controllers functions) exist in Houston. "Business Support Center's", that provide primarily transactional accounting services, exist in places such as Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Hungary, Thailand, and Singapore... among others. Financial management and a few expatriate opportunities do exist for US employees in these locations. 2) Career-long rotation program. Most move jobs every 3-5 years. 2) Interesting work, if you're lucky with job placement through rotations. 3) Stability - you will continue to receive your paycheck regardless of commodity price fluctuation
Cons
1) The majority of jobs are over-burdened with manual & outdated work tasks. This includes, but is not limited to: outdated systems, incomplete/incorrect information, weeks spent on data manipulation, consistent direct data entry (journal entries) by high-level analysts, and the population of a roughly 40-year-old software system to keep track of consolidated corporate financial records. Summarizes and coined as "Soul-sucking" work by Senior Managment. 2) The annual ranking system forces comparisons between analysts, supervisors, and managers alike. Financial rewards (annual pay increase being the only one - no bonuses or incentives other than the occasional $100 gift card) and job rotations are a direct result of how you rank each year against your peers. This doesn't seem like an issue on paper until work becomes eerily similar to a popularity contest for points in the current years' rank. "It isn't about how much value you generated last year, it's about how your contributions to the company were perceived compared to your peers". 3) SLOW to react to internal pressure or external environmental factors. This is a big company with hundreds of individual agendas. Politics are in full play and it often roadblocks potential progress and enhancements. 4) Finance Functions (service line) find themselves on a lower level salary curve throughout the career cycle compared to Engineering Functions (business line) peers. This is an Engineering company, the vast majority of business development, project economic evaluation, commodity trading, and even Finance Function supervisor positions are held by individuals with engineering degrees or operations backgrounds. With a business background (Accounting, Finance, Tax, MBA) there is a ceiling on your advancement, restriction on job roles, and pay will most likely be less than your Engineer peers. 5) Starting pay is based on degree and school (Top Tier MBAs make up to $40,000 USD more over undergraduates for the exact same desk and work product). This is frustrating both ways: MBA's would like to hold higher levels of responsibility and Undergrads would like to be paid for equivalent work output. 6) Currently extremely short on staff and hemorrhaging younger employees due to lack of work-life balance (many are working 2-3 desks).
