Career objectives and professional development goals

Professional Plans and Career Objectives

Goal Statement for Insert Name

My career mission is to work in a dynamic team-oriented company performing financial analysis and helping to guide key decisions related financial projections that direct capital expenditures. I enjoy the mechanics of small details and insuring compliance to specific budgets, report types and the impact that this type of granularity has on recommendations for major decisions within a company.

My pre-college work experience taught me the differences between customer service, labor, and accounting and finance. The hands-on work I performed in a service industry provided me with an appreciation for customers and the need to efficiently do a good job but this type of career left me without a sense of challenge. Eventually I felt drawn to the back office as I learned that the payments and processing and efficient entry of data surrounding transactions was the lifeblood of the business. Eventual work experience in an international hotel taught me that major businesses wholly depend on competent, granular records and financial accounting. I benefitted from a position that allowed freedom and required significant responsibility without direct supervision and included substantial data entry and report generation. I was introduced to billing and payment and was responsible for rudimentary report generation as accounts were closed out to hotel guests. In this position I developed a stronger interest in financial analysis as the operations of a hotel require substantially more integrated accounting and projections.

As a student at George Mason University I structured my opportunities to focus on business finance and the role of technology in financial recording and transactions. I recognized that my personality was one of individual contributor to a team with limited guidance and as such I focused my participation at George Mason in entrepreneurial business while studying both finance and business processes. I learned that I have skills both in financial analysis and computer programming and processing for finance and accounting. Every course required in-class participation and provided me with complicated problems to solve with difficult communication and reliance on both my own skills and hard work and the efforts of teams in those courses. My career after graduation reflected the unique problem solving skills and challenging education I received as an undergraduate.

My career in business has focused on work as an analyst in a major technology firm where corporate planning relies very heavily on financial controls and complex budget tracking. Projects and teams within this company span multiple government agencies and different sources of capital and records and documentation require strict attention to detail and control. I am fortunate that my experience in service and the hotel industry prepared me for communication with customers as my reports are very dependent on internal customers providing my teams with detailed information and lengthy reports. Financial processes in this environment have not been a static set of spreadsheets and data entry but have required creative team participation and complicated timelines in order to guide management decisions with recommendations. Moving within this firm from intern to analyst has led me to realize that I have a strong set of skills in financial analysis and forecasting but that post-graduate education can further sharpen those skills.