Career Overview: The Finance career field in DoD contracting offers many exciting and diverse opportunities for those with a background or degree in Finance. Also, the Finance career field in DoD contracting is unique and somewhat different than civilian financial career fields. To begin, a majority of DoD contracts are required to implement a management and financial reporting process called Earned Value Management (EVM). EVM is a management process that works in tandem with specific financial tracking and reporting requirements.
At the highest level, the EVM process supports allocating contract work activities via a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and establishing units of work called work packages and control accounts. For programs and projects, the work packages and control accounts are placed on a schedule for tracking and program execution purposes. The Financial Analyst and management team assign budget values to individual control accounts. The control accounts are usually further broken down into tasks that are tracked for completion. EVM has several rules for tracking the completion of a task and allowing the program to “Earn the value” of the work assigned to the control account. As a project executes the financial analyst and the management team track the performance of the program/project and project the program/project’s future performance using the rules of EVM.
A detailed description of EVM is beyond the scope of this article, but for personnel considering a career as a DoD Financial Analyst taking one or more courses in EVM is essential to career success. Formal training in Earned Value Management System (EVMS) is available from several companies. I have taken over 80 hours of EVM from Humphreys & Associates and highly recommend their training. Likewise for those with access you can take on-line EVM training from the Defense Acquisition University (DAU).
Additionally, financial analysts are usually trained in specialized accounting software that is set up to report DoD finances in accordance with EVM rules.
Career Path: For DoD Financial Analysts, the majority of people start in the career field as a Program Control Analyst (PCA) right after college and work their way up the Financial Analyst career field. PCA professionals are usually given one or more control accounts to manage and are often called “Control Account Managers” CAMs. As personnel move up the DoD financial career ladder they are usually given more than one project to track with multiple control accounts. As a financial analyst becomes more proficient in their career field they are usually given more complex assignments with more responsibility.
Likewise, some DoD contractors financial analyst career paths will have numerical grade levels that are based on years of experience and responsibilities.
For example
Financial Analyst I, 0-2 years of experience
Financial Analyst II, 2-5 years of experience
Financial Analyst III, 5-9 years of experience
Financial Analyst IV, 9-12 years of experience
Financial Analyst V, 12-15 years of experience
Financial Analyst VI, 15-20 years of experience
Additionally, Financial Analysts can also transition into Financial Analyst Management positions. In these positions they can be a financial analyst team lead and supervise one or more CAMS or a Financial Analyst Department Manager or Finance Manager and be responsible for multiple financial analyst team leads, CAMs and the overall program finance responsibilities. Beyond Finance manager the Financial Analysts career ladder also includes the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Salaries: Financial Analyst salaries vary by region, but start around ~$55k for entry level positions and can be in excess of $110k for Financial Managers and in excess of $150k for Chief Financial Officers.
Professional Organizations: There are several professional organizations for financial analysts. Below is a listing of two of them.
The Association for Financial Professionals
American Association for Budget and Program Analysis (AABPA)
Training & Certifications: For Financial analysts the main civilian credential that aids career progression and is often a requirement for defense contractor financial analyst jobs is formal training in Earned Value Management System (EVMS). As mentioned earlier, companies like Humphreys & Associates or the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) are available for this training.
Likewise, while not required, but very helpful is training and certification as a Professional Project Manager (PMP) or Program Management certification.
Additionally, some may find benefit in training offered to DoD government Financial Management professionals offered by
The Management Concepts training organization.
Education: Most financial analyst positions require a bachelors degree and having a masters degree is highly recommended.
Job Search: To review currently open financial analyst jobs that DoD contractors are actively hiring for I recommend going to the career page of several of the DoD contractors profiled on this site and searching for jobs with the titles “Financial Analyst” or “Program Control Analyst” and review the jobs and job requirements that come up.