A young treasury professional I spoke to recently was worried he was heading that way.
He’d spent most of his first year working in cash management and operations, but wanted to get into investments and capital markets.
And he was already worried about getting stuck.
I pushed back.
Before you rush to move away from something, have you actually learned everything it can teach you?
Because I think some younger treasury professionals are so focused on where they want to end up that they risk skipping the experience they’ll need when they get there.
There used to be a rough rule about careers…
- A year to learn the job.
- A year to do the job.
- A year to get bored of the job.
Obviously, that’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but there’s something in it.
Each year your experience broadens, things get more streamlined.
What might’ve taken a week in the first year gets done in a day.
But some younger treasury professionals want to skip that bit.
They want strategic projects, capital markets exposure…
They want what they believe is all the sexy stuff with lots of exposure internally and externally…
And I understand why.
There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but some of the supposedly “boring” treasury experience is exactly what gives you the foundations to do the interesting stuff later.
I was reminded of something Joel Campbell once said when I shared the stage with him at the AFP Conference in San Diego…
Earlier in his career, he complained to his boss about a task he was doing.
It was repetitive, frustrating, boring.
His boss’s response was:
“Welcome to the world of work.”
Not every part of your career is going to be exciting. And not every boring task is beneath you.
You’ve got to understand the building blocks before you can start rearranging them.
That’s why I pushed back on this young candidate.
Rather than spending the next year worrying about escaping cash management, I’d be asking:
- What else can I learn here?
- What projects can I volunteer for?
- Can I get exposure to another part of treasury?
- Can I become the person people come to because I understand how things actually work?
I even suggested he might become a Senior Treasury Analyst first.
Becoming a really good, broad Senior Treasury Analyst might make it much easier to get the capital markets role he ultimately wants.
There’s nothing wrong with specialising.
Specialists can become incredibly valuable and very well paid.
But I’ve also seen what happens when people specialise too far, too early…
Someone becomes an exceptional specialist in one area and earns a great wage doing it.
Five years later, they decide they want a broader treasury career.
The problem is, they haven’t got the broader experience expected at that salary level.
So to make the move, they may have to take a big step backwards.
That’s when the pigeonhole really does become a problem.
So if you’re early in your treasury career, don’t panic because your current role isn’t exactly where you want to end up.
Get good at something.
Learn the boring bits.
Understand the processes.
Volunteer for things.
Drink more coffee with people around the business.
You don’t have to get to the destination as quickly as possible.
Become useful first.
Yes, you can think about the next move, but pace yourself!
Sometimes the experience you’re most desperate to rush past is the experience you’ll wish you had later.
Best regards,
Mike
