Grad School and Age

Financial Advisor and can't see myself finishing my career doing this. 40 and thinking of Grad School. Had a late start to career. Would like to move the direction of Corp Fin. and would like to end up in doing something thats strategy oriented. Undergrad in Econ (3.53 GPA). Career plus-Have been a board member of an international chamber of commerce. Im thinking Exec MBA but career oppty with my current employer is limited. Challenge I see with the Exec MBA is being able to network well and switch companies to get oppty. Any help will be sincerely appreciated.

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Best Response

This board is overrun with 20-30 year olds, I'd be suspect of any advice you see here. That being said, a few thoughts:

  1. The older you are, the more your experience matters. I'm over 30 in an M7 school and my resume definitely had an impact on the opportunities available to me, but full time M7 MBA's are the best education option to pivot careers. Unfortunately, I don't expect they'll take someone in their 40's, nor do I expect you're interested in two years of no income. As you go down the ranks, success rates of pivoting careers at attractive salary levels drops considerably and is correlated with age.

  2. My friends who've done exec programs have all done so to advance in their current industry/company.

  3. Part time programs at top schools will give access to OCR, but I have a feeling that your resume will lead you towards the same types of roles that your experience would generally qualify you for anyways.

  4. Nobody is going to care about your undergrad GPA if you're 18 years out of school. It's going to be all about your professional accomplishments for recruiting and whatever programs you are targeting. GMAT might factor in depending on the program.

Have you considered the following? 1. Speaking with admissions/career services at your target programs to see whether your goals are realistic (they should generally be honest about how many people have made a similar transition at your age and might be able to provide guidance on whether you should be expecting a salary cut vs bump and how much)?

  1. Filtering LinkedIn for years of experience, graduation date and looking for career changers you can contact directly?

  2. Speaking with recruiters about what parts of your resume would be attractive for a corp fin role, and what they would want to see to make you a viable candidate?

  3. Going the CFA/CPA route? A lot cheaper than an MBA and opens up some networking. I'd ask recruiters which is more viable. Right now your experience provides 18 years worth of compensation expectations and 0 years of relevant experience; a certification might help.

Are you at a big firm? Your best bet might be to network internally and try to find a role in finance that fits, you might be able to help supporting on P&L projects to get your foot in the door. Taking some finance and accounting classes on the side certainly wouldn't hurt, but fact check your expectations for reasonableness before you start cutting checks for thousands of dollars.

Either way, good luck!

 

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