What should my brother do with his career?

March 24, 2006 4:55 PM

Help me help my brother make a decision about what to do with his career. He is 24, from the UK, has a batchelors degree (in Business Studies) and has worked for about 3 years as a management consultant.

His dream job is to be involved in the business side of football (the world game; soccer) and he has applied to take a Masters course related to this.

The course costs 9000 pounds, which he can afford, but he would have to leave his job. At the end of the course there is no real structured way to get employment (as with a lot of things it seems to be a question of being in the right place at the right time).

He has enough savings to live comfortably for the year the course takes and have a little left over (he will probably work part time during the course too).

He knows he has a good job at the moment but it really is not fulfilling (for a number of reasons which I won't go into), the money is good. However, the job is what it is and if he stays there will be no change in what he does.

He has a broad range of experience but not so much depth from his work as a consultant. He particularly liked projects working on advertising and marketing.

The problem is that the work he wants to do is hard to obtain. I think it is important for him to pursue this dream but if it doesn't work out he has no idea what he wants to do.

Help me give him some direction - are there any resources you can recommend that will guide him in considering his career options? He has spoken to his old careers advisor at Uni (useless) and had a look around but still has no ideas.

Are you involved in the industry / have any idea on how to crack it?

Complicating factor: I am half a world away in Australia and will be here for at the minimum 2 years (probably more).


On the plus side I am willing to help him out financially if he needs it.

Thanks for reading.

posted by Rc to work & money (5 comments total)

Does he have any other experience related to football? A degree alone isn't going to help.
posted by acoutu at 4:58 PM on March 24, 2006

Cheers acoutu - let me clarify.

He want's to get into the business side of football clubs - apparently his prior experience will be useful there.

The masters is geared to making the transition from other businesses to working in football. I am not sure on the details.

The course has a good reputation (he tells me) and appears to be one of the few ways to open a door into that business (however slight).
posted by Rc at 5:13 PM on March 24, 2006

I very much doubt that degree will have any influence whatsoever on anyone's hiring decision in 3 years time*. He'd be far better off spending that time trying to get an internship/apprenticeship/whatever at a club and making contacts with people on the inside.

(* not that I have any particular knowledge of football and/or business, just of having a useless degree)
posted by cillit bang at 5:32 PM on March 24, 2006

A degree won't help. Sorry, anyone who wants to charge that much for that specialized of a degree is selling snake oil.

My advice would be to see if he could get work with a university's football program. There's a lot of management types required to run a school program, and they're usually a bit looser about who they hire. From there, once he has experience and a few years in the industry, he could try getting into a major team's staff.
posted by SpecialK at 6:26 PM on March 24, 2006

I was just wondering how he saw his current background meshing with the business side of football. Has he worked for a sports management client? Anything related to sports at all? Could he spend a couple of years working for a sports-related client before committing to a masters program? For example, could he work in the sports information department of a university? When I was starting out in marketing, I worked as a sports information assistant in the university athletics department. I learned a lot about sports marketing, even though I decided not to go into athletics.

Your brother should consider where he can go to make more senior contacts in sports/football. At this point, the degree is going to put him in a classroom with people with contacts they're not going to share and very little experience. (Why else are they doing this degree? You might get the odd person going for that piece of paper, but most of those types would be pursuing an MBA at that point.) Can he find a program that offers internships or co-op education?
posted by acoutu at 8:52 PM on March 24, 2006