Careers

Recently I have been thinking alot about my job and whether I am going to be stuck here in the same position forever. I haven't been in my current position for two long (a little over a year and half). However, I find myself worried that it's not giving me the kind of experience that will make me valuable for other positions either with this company or other companies. I work for a mutual fund company working on reporting for the funds. I basically work up all the financial statements, portfolios, annual and semi annual reports for a group of funds owned and managed by my company. I like my job. It's interesting.

However, currently there are only 4 staff working in my department. There are 3 managers. One of the staff has been here and in the same position for 8 years. I know she is very frustrated that she can't get a promotion to some sort of management level. I can picture myself in the same situation 6 years from now. Still working in the same department as a staff. That has me worried. I don't want to be CEO of a company. However I do want to be successful. I feel that moving up into middle management and taking on more responsibility is a sign of success. Higher pay also helps. My concern is that with the type of work I do, there is not alot of demand in my city. There are two big mutual fund companies that I know of where I live. Other companies accounting departments are looking for people with mutual fund accounting experience. Therefore I don't see how I could expect or hope to move up the career ladder either with my current company or a different company. I guess my main concern that I don't want to be stuck in a dead end job.

Today there was a job posting for a tax associate in my company. The position is a staff position working on the tax aspect of the mutual funds owned by my company. I'm considering it. The reasons I'm balking at applying for the position are that I'm not sure if it would get me anywhere. Would I be exchanging one dead end staff position for another? Or would this position offer the kind of experience valuable to other companies? Could this position possibly lead to a higher up position in the future? Another reason for balking is that I don't even know if I would like the position. I'm fairly happy doing what I currently do. What if I switched jobs and hated it? The job description doesn't give me a great idea of what they do. The responsibilities are listed but they don't give you a great idea if you haven't worked in that type of position before. I am going to mull this all over in my head today and tomorrow and see where I land. In life you must take chances. Time will tell if I make the right decision.