Working in finance with the government: what is an FI?

Explaining the abbreviation

We all know how much the government loves their abbreviations. So let me explain what is an FI to all of you normal people who aren’t up to date on the lingo.

An FI is a classification for financial administration officers. You will also often see a number after FI which is the level of the position. If you ever were to get a promotion, you would jump from FI-1 to F1-2. Finally, there is a thing called increments. These are the automatic pay boosts that you get every year. So if you started as an FI-1-1, the next year you would be an FI-1-2 and so on.

Skip below for advice on succeeding in finance in the government ⬇️

What does an FI do?

Financial administration officers typically work on tasks related to:

• Working with financial software tools
• Analyzing historical data to make future financial predictions
• Completing financial statements
• Presenting financial reports to senior financial officers or clients

Areas of finance

These tasks above were kept general as there are many finance areas in the government with their own specified responsibilities including:

• Accounting Operations
• Resource Management
• Financial Policy
• Financial Systems

Interested in networking your way into the government? Check out Asking myself “why should I network?”.

Networking with an FI

If you know me personally or have maybe stalked my LinkedIn (this is a shame-free zone, I stalk too), you might know that I work as a junior financial analyst with the Canada Revenue Agency. I chose to network with a couple of different FI’s, one of them through Reddit actually, to see if their more senior roles would interest me.

This specific coffee chat was with an FI-3, Siri Gunawardane, who has an MBA and now works in resource management with the Canada Revenue Agency. He started out as a science student and switched to finance inspired by one of his professors that made him enjoy the topic. Siri joined the government as an SP-5 or Jr. Project Officer (sorry another government abbreviation) in Tax Collections and then transitioned to an FI position.

Siri’s most frequent tasks as an FI-3 include:

• Presenting financial briefing reports to the Director Generals and senior management along with risk analysis and risk management strategies
• Reporting major IT project expenses, projections, and variance explanations
• Analyzing historicals and providing financial advice
• Peer reviewing junior financial analysts’ work and providing constructive feedback
• Running meetings with teammates and clients on various financial tasks

Siri’s advice

During our virtual coffee chat, I also asked Siri for advice that he would have for students -both general and specific for those interested in working for the government. The following are the answers to some questions:

✏️ Get your CPA and learn French because it will help you grow faster in your career with the government.

💻 Sharpen excel skills such as pivot tables, vlookup, hlookup and macro programming.

🙋‍♀️ Take the opportunities presented because it offers visibility and executives will notice you.

🤝 Expand your network on LinkedIn because more people are more likely to trust you when you have common connections.

💸 Manage your own finances ASAP. This means being financially responsible by learning how to save and budget for yourself and getting a credit card to build your credit score.

Want to save money by budgeting? Download my Budget Template and let’s get rich together! 🤑

Takeaway

From what I have learned, finance in the government is more financial planning/advising or IT-related. So, if you’re more into investing, working in finance for the government might not be for you. Like anything in life, there are both pros and cons to working for the government. It offers stability, good benefits, growth and good work-life balance, but the work can sometimes get repetitive. Finally, it might be worth considering obtaining your CPA and learning French to have more leadership opportunities.

Is the public sector not for you? Read my other blog Why join a startup? 😊