Career advice for mid-career changer
 

Hi all,

I am a 31 year old guy, with a Bsc in Life Sciences. Recently left a biomedical research job after five years. Since there are no prospects without a PhD in the research field, hence I left (no intention to take one either). I am in my final year of a PT accounting degree with UOL (Uni. of London). Hope to enter the accounting field after getting the UOL degree.
My questions are:
1. Am I too old to start a new career?
2. Do the accounting industry except old entry-level people like myself?
3. Besides ACCA, what other relevant courses would be useful for me?

Thank you. :)

I switched career when I was around 30 as well. I have a science degree but took short executive courses (finance, law) and got an entry level job in a finance related field. Started from the bottom and never looked back. I eventually took an mba to move into the sector that I wanted. I suggest a good mba (reputable ones) to help switch careers and from there you can choose to pick up professional degree like cpa, cfa etc to complement your existing qualifications (if it is relevant of course). Using a professional degree, like acca, cpa etc in my view is slightly more difficult. If you assume your previous experience is not relevant, then you are basically competing with people who are early 20s with cpas/accas, who also have the same qualifications. As an employer, who would you hire? a 30 year old with acca,cpa or a fresh graduate?

Hi there, thanks for your advice. :)
Would you consider local (NUS/NTU/SMU) MBAs as reputable?
Would employers hire pple with MBAs even though they have no previous experience?

1. local MBAs are useful only if you decide to stay in singapore for the rest of your live. you need to think bigger and out of singapore. how many jobs do you think is available in a country of 4-5million people? try china, try hong kong. CEIBS is ranked by FT as one of the top 10 MBA school and it is based in shanghai. I suggest not only switching career but switching location of your next job search.

2. MBAs are meant for people who have worked for a few years. If you can put a good spin on your previous work experience, I am sure there are other lateral paths you can move and definitely put you in a more advantageous position compared to fresh graduate with MBA.

Dont bother with local MBAs, they dont add value to career switchers. Unless employers send you there or you took it yourself to get a better job in the same industry you have been in, then makes sense.

Get a top tier MBA for career switch. Its more eye popping that NTU/SMU and NUS.

To even be accepted into reputable biz schs, I would need to be fairly accomplished in my current career, right? So isn't this a catch-22 situation? I need a good MBA to be able to switch careers, but to qualify for the MBA, I need to have an established career. Lol... I think there are many paths to success, doesn't have to take the MBA route to succeed. I have being toying with the idea of starting my own biz. Who knows, that could be a viable route. :o)