Over 30, still no undergrad, finance career options?

Hi!

I'll forgo the story unless anyone asks for it but, I dropped out of university to be a chef, found success in that career, but the job is becoming physically unsustainable as I age. I want to attend university with a definite career goal this time, and my only other real interest besides food has been economics and finance.

I'll be 36 by the time I graduate, so is there a field where that age is seen as a plus rather than a detriment? I have zero problems with long ours (I have worked 70-80/wk for the last decade), enjoy travelling so maybe consulting would be a good fit? I'm looking for some initial guidance. University is a large expense, even in Canada. I'm planning on getting readmitted to UBC as a mature student.

EDIT: Thank you for all the good advice. I think I have better prospects staying the course or moving to an industry closer to my experience.

 

I'd say corporate finance, treasury, accounting, operations, FP&A, real estate, and I'm sure there are other areas. I don't know about the prospects of getting a very high paying finance job like investment banking, McKinsey or buy-side roles, but I'm sure there are a ton of places that you could work from 9-5 and make a good living. However, I don't know if you'd enjoy it. People work in finance primarily to make money. Other than that, most finance jobs are pretty boring. Have you considered engineering or computer science? Median pay is probably higher for those types of jobs, and you can always get an MBA in finance while taking night classes. Pick something you would enjoy, or leverage your experience as a chef to get roles at companies in that industry where you have first-hand experience. Anyway, yeah you can find finance jobs, there are a bunch of them that don't include names like Goldman or McKinsey but you're not going to be doing interesting work.

 

Hey thanks!

I the trouble is that I'm already in my dream job. I've wanted to be a chef since I was 15, and I've been one for 12 years, ran kitchens, but the truth of the industry is 13 hours a day on your feet, until you either leave, start a business (startup loans impossible), or have a serious injury remove you from the game.

I'm going to do more research for sure, but I need an exit strategy.

 

Oh I'd love to. I'd kill it. Opening up a restaurant is a matter of startup funds, not talent. The risk assessment is SKY-HIGH so banks won't give you a cent until you're already up and profitable for a few years. So that's about 250k of your own cash. There's a reason you see so few chef-owners.

I got a raise to about 32k (40k canadian) after tips, pretty much the most money I've ever seen in my life, so I have to be realistic.

 

If the only constraint is money i'd try get in to some type of tech / culinary sales job. I know its a huge benefit to be an end user of software in the eyes of firms selling software, I'd guess its the same for firms selling professional kitchen equipment. They generally dont require degrees and you can make bank in any sales job. And its the best skill to have too. Tech sales is also an option to make $$$.

Honestly fuck working 80-110 hour weeks at 36 - 40 plugging numbers in to excel. Just my 0.02$

 

I would get a cheap undergrad degree at a REPUTABLE school, like in-state flagship schools. not like a shit school that means almost nothing, or some Walden / Kaplan types,

You can at best get about $2000 back on tax credit with $10k spend (AOTC/LLC), and you'd want to cap your tuition spend that much every year.

Then it's really a toss-up. Don't think too hard about what jobs you can get, (in reality you have no offers now), but really try to improve your job-search skills and your "analysis box"

 

I don't know what I would do If I were in your position, but I think finding a good job in finance would be exceptionally tough for you. The main issue is exactly the concern you have addressed; your age is a huge drawback.

Management consulting and high-paying finance jobs a-like (especially at entry levels) are very time demanding. It requires a ton of mental stamina, energy, and work ethic to thrive in and that's something that your younger counterparts will comparatively excel in.

If had completed your undergrad before becoming a chef and were thinking about pursuing an MBA, then I think you would have more options. Maybe you will be the exception (you never know until you try), but I don't see how an employer would prefer to hire you versus the many other exceptional candidates he has to consider.

I recommend you continue your research, but make a conscious effort to be truthful with your self before making a decision.

 

Wait you're a chef who would kill it if given the chance yet after over a decade of working your salary is only $32k? Waiters make about that in the surburbs. Most bartenders in NYC make $100k+.

If you don't suck ass and you're around NYC, PM me and cook me a meal. If you're good I'll introduce you to someone who is investing in restaurants. Hell I'll even throw in my own money.

 
SanityCheck:
Wait you're a chef who would kill it if given the chance yet after over a decade of working your salary is only $32k? Waiters make about that in the surburbs. Most bartenders in NYC make $100k+.

If you don't suck ass and you're around NYC, PM me and cook me a meal. If you're good I'll introduce you to someone who is investing in restaurants. Hell I'll even throw in my own money.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing.

A good chef makes at the very least twice that or six figures for an executive chef.

Maybe he is a line cook.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

@SanityCheck That's extremely generous of you! Unfortunately, I'm on the west coast and on top of that, Canadian.

@Isaiah_53_5 Front of house always makes more than back, in every restaurant, forever (unless you're TK I guess). 32k (or in my case 40k CAD) is standard for a chef of my experience at for my restaurant's size in Vancouver.

 

I recently made the mid-life-career move into finance. Now, you & I have had different trajectories but I can give you this observation and advice: Finance will always fill the roles that are in demand with lesser consideration to your background. If I was in your position, I would look to get an accounting degree and go into audit. You can do it with an undergrad, you will have plenty of companies to choose from and as long as you can do the work, no one will care about your age and (generally speaking) audit pays pretty good.

 

If you like restaurants. Go back to school part time and get your degree and then move into finance role for a restaurant group. In NYC a lot of chefs receive equity in their restaurants.

32k a year salary is low even for the restaurant industry.

Im 30 now but i left finance when I was 27 and opened one restaurant and then a second. To be honest I will never go back to finance. At 36 you dont want to be an excel monkey working 80-100 hours. Unless your building your own business.

 

I’m gonna be super blunt: this is a ridiculous uphill battle if you’re trying for say finance jobs in Canada. Just simply given the minuscule number of opportunities on Bay Street, coupled with the very likely ageism that is working against you. Even if you are totally fine with cranking long hours in IB, Corp banking, accounting/audit or what have you, unfortunately you’re going to face silent discrimination on your age. They’ll ask themselves behind closed doors “why didn’t this guy do this 10+ years ago”, “is he gonna be able to commit to these hours?”. And the thing is, those are reasonable questions - it’s hard to crank those same hours as you get older. They aren’t fair because they aren’t universally applicable to every individual, but they’ll be asked (internally, unofficially) regardless.

The second piece that will go unverbalized, but will definitely be considered is the awkwardness of age gap. In some industries, it can be normal for there the to be much younger managers / directors leading people older than them. It definitely happens across finance and accounting because some folks take indirect paths getting to where they are, career switched or what have you, but typically speaking, it’s not a wide gap, and more commonly, the ages often follow suit on seniority given the up or out type style of finance (maybeless a thing in accounting). You see some reversal of roles in age with say MBAs, where maybe you’ll have young VPs (that’s started out as analysts from undergrad) work with post-MBA associates in their mid 30s maybe. But that’s post graduate. Not at the starting line of analyst. It’s possible, but just very rare, and not likely done due to “awkwardness”. And Canada having so few opportunities, it’s rarer still because there are plenty of kids wanting their shot.

I think if I were a chef that has had success but was just lacking in funds to start my own thing... I’d network with some folks that DO have the funds that want to start their own business but are clueless on what they want. There are plenty of the bankers or consultant types that probably want to venture out to do their own thing, and have the capital to do it, but don’t have their own ideas on what to do (nor want to quit their day jobs to do it). I think you just need to find someone to supply the money, while you supply the talent and vision.

 

SFU graduates dominate the IB world in Vancouver, especially the ones who get into the Beedie fund. Another thing to take into account is that IB in Vancouver is heavily focused on mining (and some other things), so that's something you will have to like. Bunch of the information you will get here applies to US and Toronto... Vancouver is a whole different thing regarding IB. Try to contact people inside the big 5 banks, although you might get better results by contacting boutiques (Haywood, Canaccord, Fort Capital... ). I suggest you do more research before committing to UBC. And take all the negative comments with a grain of salt. IB banking is difficult to get into even for 21yr old kids with a finance background A+ and internships. Not saying that it will be easy, just saying that it is difficult for everybody.

"Drill, Baby, Drill" - Sarah Palin
 

Graduate and seek finance roles in F&B or hotels where your operational experience is a value add. Anything where you're working with a spreadsheet. Use your ops experience to find opportunities to improve the business you work with, and use your spreadsheet to quantify how impactful those changes might be.

I worked in hotels for a long time. Our head of asset management, now a CFO of a competitor, did exactly this to launch his career. He went from revenue analyst (aka literally working in reservations) direct to asset management in the company.

The older you are, the more your experience matters. Use it, and be prepared to make the most of your opportunities, not wait for the most opportunities.

 

Terutt, I'm speaking from experience that it is difficult to change careers after a certain age. That said, you are not there yet. However, you will be the longer your procrastinate. Do you know what you want to do? I would submit to you that seeking guidance on a career change from being a chef to doing something in finance is a bit of a stretch, but nothing is impossible.

I would suggest you do NOT fall for the mistake of assuming landing a job as a "Financial Advisor" for any firm that will train you, pay you to study, then unleash you on the general public. Horrible mistake to go that route, trust me.

Don't know what your technical abilities are, but if you enjoy computer programming, there are a number of courses/majors where learning a trade such as being a programmer could be lucrative. You won't land at GOOGL making $200k out of college, as they're looking for the 23-year olds who have literally been raised with a cellphone, computer and a thousand other gizmos while they were growing up and just have an innate feel for how programming works.

If you like being outdoors, perhaps you could look into utility lineman careers. I worked with a few of those guys while we were bringing high voltage feeds off of a 230KV main onto one of the plants we were building. Those guys don't have a 4-year degree, but make damned good dough.

Wish you the best of luck. It's tough to switch mid-career. In the same respect, as I've said before on these boards, life is too short to be miserable doing something where you spend at least 1/3 of your life. Hang tough, you'll find your path. Step 1 is actually looking/getting an idea what you want to do.

 

I'm a bit late to the game here, but would echo some of the sentiments above, unfortunately. A few points worth noting: - Sauder (UBC) is a great school academically, but underappreciated (not Canadian target except out west). Also, if you want to work on Bay street, not that many more jobs and you will be a 2nd tier candidate. You also have the geographic challenges to over come (almost cross-border in difficulty to explain why you want to move from one coast to another. Also harder to physically network) - There are almost no finance jobs in Vancouver - there is a spreadsheet that circulates showing every banker in Vancouver. It has 30 cells, 6 Canadian banks (including NBF) and 5 levels (Analyst to MD). Slight exaggeration, but not far from the truth. Also Vancouver is focused on metals and mining (even more so than the rest of Canada, especially given it's TSX-V heritage). The only non-NRG companies to cover are things like WestJet and they aren't doing much in the cap markets or in M&A.

 

If you've got friends who are senior in the industry, why not ask them? They can ballpark your odds and offer far better advice than this forum.

I don't entirely understand your description of your tech background or its value, but my guess is its not very realistic to expect going straight to PE/VC after graduation. That's already the exception to the rule for the most accomplished students at target schools. If PE is something you want to do you should still aim for it, but plan to take some intermediate steps between graduation and PE. Plotting out those stepping stones is where your MD connections can be especially helpful.

Through all of that background info you gave, I couldn't follow how far you are away from graduation. Obviously upgrading your school brand name could be helpful, but are you really in position to transfer again after just coming to SDSU via CC? At this point, after all you've gone through, make sure you prioritize finishing your degree above all else. Don't let the distraction of transfer applications get in your way.

 

Thank you for the reply HighlyClevered .

The value of the tech background was just to fill in the gaps and provide some insight to what I was doing, no value to the skill. I am not ready to reach out to the MD contacts yet, but I will when the time is close.

What resources would best plan for the stepping stones? I will be applying for transfer for next year by fall 2018 (or winter 2018), assuming I am close to finishing my remainder classes. I will be meeting with the workshops from the school to plan this right.

I am in a position to transfer to SDSU (I will be sending an application in during fall too), but I am not sure if it would be the right school for what I want to accomplish.

How are non-target schools viewed? Finishing my degree is my #1 goal at this point. I set time aside at the end, after the semester ends to plan my transfer.

Thanks again HighlyClevered

No pain no game.
 
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