CFO job tougher than five years ago.

• Author: Ladd, Scott
• Position: MANAGEMENT - Chief financial officers - Brief article

It's not easy sitting in the chief financial officer's chair. That's no secret to most financial executives these days. But a new survey by Robert Half Management Resources, consulting and executive staffing company, concludes that an overwhelming majority of CFOs believe it's more difficult to manage a company's finances than it was five years ago.

In a recent survey of more than 1,400 CFOs, 81 percent of the respondents said they found their jobs either significantly or somewhat more challenging than five years earlier. Just 3 percent reported their work as being somewhat less challenging, and 1 percent replied that being CFO is significantly less challenging than it had been previously Paul McDonald, the senior executive director of Robert Half, noted that CFOs are facing new and more complex problems than they encountered during the middle part of the last decade.

"Because of dramatic changes in the business landscape in recent years, executives are facing additional pressures as they...