A little backstory. Living in Vancouver. Spent most of my 20’s doing random office jobs, changing majors a couple of times… so now I’m 30 with a bachelor with finance concentration from a B-rated school and with no experience in the finance industry.
It appears that in Vancouver, the finance-related options are a bit limited. Working as a bank teller and just work your way up; taking one of those financial advisor jobs like in SunLife where you’re selling life insurances and stuff; receptionist/assistance to advisors… there doesn’t seem to be many non-customer focused positions in town. The ones I do find seems to require like 2-5+ experience, doing the CFA/CIM and to be licensed with IIROC.
My question would be: Being 30, a bit too old to break in? I can easily uproot, would moving to maybe Calgary or Toronto be better? Would doing the CFA (and/or CIM) be useful in getting a job?
Moving to Calgary or Toronto will be much better if you want to deal with businesses. If you want to be a HNW advisor, Vancouver is probably stronger. Finance is huge and diverse. You need to figure out what you want to do before you break in. There is a big difference from bank teller to Bay Street financier.
How does one actually get into the industry? I cannot do co-op as I’m not a student anymore. I can’t really do those internships really as I now have a family and got bills to pay.
Most job postings (even entry-level) require at least 2-5 years experience. I feel like I’m stuck in catch-22, where I cannot get any experience, because I have no experience.
As for what my end-goal is to be… thinking like researching/analysizing or managing portfolios. I’m more of a numbers and computers kind of guy, rather than sales. I doubt I can be a financial advisor and build my own books as my network is very limited. Most of my circle of friends are late 20-early 30’s, single and living at home with mom & dad. And most of those adults are rich in property (high housing prices in Vancouver), but not necessarily with any resources for investments.
This is the new trend in this Lost Generation, especially among men. I heard a stat the other day that 75% of 20/30s living on their own are women. For some reason, men decide to stay in the basement.
I suspect at least part of that is that parents think that men need to learn to support themselves, whereas they have less of an issue sending monthly checks to support their daughters until they get married to someone.
It’s also true that rather than fire senior male staff, many companies try to improve the gender numbers in the workforce by hiring more female candidates for entry and mid-level jobs. They are often cheaper (or don’t bargain as hard for stuff), just as qualified, and make diversity numbers look good. This was a big problem for me when I was in academe. I understand the historical rebalancing that needs to happen, and I don’t think the others are unqualified, but it still sucked for me being the wrong sex, race, and sexual orientation.
^ One of the arguments explaining the stat was that the “Mancession” that hit in 2008 hurt male intensive industries more. Teaching and healthcare are more secure jobs and an overwhelming amount of females are in those industries.
Another reason (this is coming from me and not from research) is that parents are more strict on women than on men when it comes to giving their children freedom. A lot of women I know complained on how their father was tougher (more protective) on them than on their brothers, which pushed them to move out sooner. They had to be home at a certain time but their male siblings didn’t have such restrictions.
I was discussing something tangential to this today with a friend over lunch, thinking of how some of the girls that work on our team/around us seem to spend far more of of a % of pay on things like renting an expensive apartment, or buying that nicer car, shopping at Whole Foods vs. a regular grocery store, etc. compared with many of the guys. It’s almost as if they don’t really think about future savings or needs beyond 401k. One of the girls that fits this mold, I heard her saying a while ago that she hadn’t looked at her 401k since she started work with us.
I should add that my comment shouldn’t be read as saying women are less capable of supporting themselves than men are… it’s just that parents are likely to feel that their girls need more help, or feel worse about not supporting them financially. And many children - men or women - are not going to turn down help if offered.
Here is my advice, lots of folks here will disagree with me. Go get a job with a good corporation doing corporate development. You get to do M&A, analyse the corporate portfolio. You may need to start in FP&A type roles, or in Treasury. You’ll work 40 hour weeks most of the time and make $200k+ with four or five weeks off. You’ll likely have to do some crap job for awhile and fight it out. That’s just where you are. Though I’d say you’re about 200% more likely to be a director in a corporation in 10 years than one in a bank. You can try to do some back office nonsense move to FO, but it a ridiculous long shot and you’re more likely than not to end up making peanuts verifying trades.
^ 10 years to be a director? Seems pretty questionable. From my experience (albeit limited) it’s more like 20 years to get to the director level in a large corporation. Here’s how I understand it typically
Analyst/Associate/whatever basic start title (0-4 years exp)
Perhaps some “senior” or “advanced” title thrown in here (2-4 yrs exp)
Have you considered the CPA program? I’m sure you took a few Accounting courses in undergrad. Once you get a few of the CPA courses completed this may open up some doors for you on the Corporate side (in a CPA program) or with a Aounting firm in an entry level role.
^ Yeah, more like 15+, that’s fair. I’m at 10 years now and I’m no director, but I’m also hacksaw to the max. But I’m guessing this guy has some experience, he’s not a new grad. So I was suggesting in 10 years, assuming he had 5+ years of existing experience. The important part was I that I was comparing his relative odds of success in the corporate world versus the banking/investment world. Given his existing background, he will almost surely do better in corporate. Especially if he wants to stay in Vancouver.
I initially was doing th CGA program, completed level 3 and decided that I’m not much of a fan of accounting. Had trouble struggling through those courses… switched major to finance and suddenly the material felt like a breeze in comparison. Which is ironic because my finance prof says the higher you go up in finance, there’s more emphasis on accounting, lol.
Perhaps it’s just the job market, but I’m just seeing entry-level accounting clerk roles, and they’re asking for 4th level+ in an accounting program (designation preferred) and 2-5 years experience =(