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- Year Of Graduation: 2013
- College/University: Adelphi University
- Major: Business Administration
What do you do for a living? Can you share what a typical day at work looks like?
I’m a junior accountant for a Canadian company, and I do pretty much everything from an accounting and finance perspective. That’s all the accounts receivable (which entails the invoicing for our customers), and the accounts payable, so anybody who we owe money, I need to set them up in our accounting journal entries and then process payment.
I have to maintain all of our schedules for capital assets, depreciation, prepaid expenses, and deferred revenue. I process payroll on a bimonthly basis. I also do month close and variance analysis. In accounting, it’s very cyclical in nature. So every month we close our books within four days of every month. So the month-end process is a very heavy lift. I would say like the first week of every month is our busiest time. We also have a quarter end close and a yearly close, so every three months it’ll be a little bit heavier lift, and then once a year we go through an audit.
Why did you choose your undergrad major?
I was always a very smart student, and I was always really good at math. Both of my parents were finance professionals; my mom was on the accounting side, and my dad more on the finance side. So naturally, I just went with Business Administration with a focus on Accounting. I was interested in business, and I thought that degree would set me up with the most opportunities to get into the workforce after. I didn’t really honestly have any specific plan when I chose it, though. Even when I graduated, it was like, “Oh s***, like okay, now what do I do?”
I had to juggle the fact that I was in a foreign country, too. I went to school in the United States. There was the whole visa side of things, and I didn’t even look into it until I graduated. I had to figure out how to stay in the States. As a Canadian, you get one year of something called OPT, which is Optional Practical Training. And basically, it grants you one year to stay in the country to work in the field that ties to your education. I applied for that, and I ended up getting it after a few months. That was the foundation for allowing me to start a career in New York.
So, you were a D1 athlete during college. How did you end up interested in soccer? Was that a path you always knew interested you?
I’ve always been a sports guy. Growing up, I played baseball, hockey, and soccer. I kind of fell in love with soccer from a young age, like I always had a ball at my feet since I was two or three. Once I joined soccer, I was always one of the better players, too. Naturally, when you’re good at something, you just kind of enjoy it more, I think.
So I ended up quitting hockey, I quit baseball, and I was able to focus my efforts full-time on soccer. When I was 13 or 14, right around the age where, you know, competitive play really starts, our team began travelling. We would play against teams from Toronto, and from the States. I kind of identified pursuing soccer as my main goal when I was in grade 9 or 10. My goal was to get a scholarship to play at a D1 school in the States.
In grade 11 and grade 12, I did a lot of travel to various showcase and tournaments. I played in Dallas, and there’s a Disney showcase tournament which happens every year around Christmas in Florida. I went to that twice, and it was during the second time that I got recruited by a number of universities, with my school, Adelphi, being one of them. Some of the other main ones I considered were Cornell and Appalachian State. Adelphi offered me a full ride, though, and they were in a great location in New York. My family is in Ottawa, so you could drive like eight or nine hours, or you could fly in an hour or so. Also, my best friend growing up who’s also named Brandon, we were co-captains of our team, and he was recruited by Adelphi too. He decided to go there, and I was fully sold.
Did you ever consider making soccer your career? Or was D1 the primary goal?
At the time, D1 was kind of the North Star. Growing up in Ottawa, there was no example of somebody who was able to go pro for me to look towards. So, the goal was to just get the D1 scholarship. Afterwards, when I graduated, my coach actually asked me about that, like if I wanted to go pro. He thought I could, but honestly, by the end of school, I had kind of fallen out of love with soccer. It’s a major commitment when you’re on a sports team in college, especially when it’s D1, and you’re expected to perform consistently. Over time, you just can’t participate in as many extracurricular activities or see friends.
When I graduated, I was burned out from soccer and took like six months to a year where I didn’t play at all. But eventually, I felt something was missing, and I joined some men’s leagues in New York. I started playing again, and you know it all comes back quickly. I found myself really excelling and really enjoying playing again for myself, not for somebody else.
Can you tell me about your experience finding a job after graduation, and where your journey has led you thus far?
Well, the first goal was to make money because I needed to support myself in New York. I had like seven roommates in Brooklyn in my first apartment after college. I didn’t actually start my career right away. I had two kind of unique jobs before I started my career. I found both through Craigslist, and like I was applying to anything, you know, cooking, cleaning, whatever.
My first job was a sales job where you basically had to knock on doors and try and get people to sign up for Children International sponsorships. You’d only get paid if you closed a sale. I did it for a few months and would knock on about a hundred doors, actually talk to maybe 20 people, and then from those 20 people you’ll get 10 people who will let you ask questions before shutting you off, and then finally maybe two or three people will actually sign up. I actually felt it was kind of manipulative, because you’re kind of pressuring people into doing something that maybe they don’t feel comfortable with, and you’re actually required to have them provide their credit card information at the door.
My next job was really sick. I was basically a sales agent for a real estate company in Brooklyn. My job was going to all these open apartments, taking pictures, writing descriptions, and then spam posting these apartments on Craigslist other platforms. After that, I’d field any responses from interested clients or tenants. I would show them the apartment and then try to close the deal. So, same idea where you’d only get paid if you close the deal, but it felt way better knowing that you’re providing an actual service or amenity, like housing. The first paycheck felt really good, but it wasn’t sustainable. That work wouldn’t have qualified for my OPT training. Eventually, I started looking for accounting work.
I was lucky enough to stumble upon an entry-level accounting position with a company called New York City Housing Development Corporation. That was the start of my career as an accountant. That was like maybe 2014 or 2015, around there.
How did you end up coming back to Canada after all those years in the United States?
I was in the accounting team for about four years in New York, and then I got promoted to the finance team, specifically capital markets, which was an analyst role. I did that for I think about four years as well, where I managed our in-house loan servicing software. I was the go-to person for almost everything because when you have a new system, people don’t know how to use it. A lot of my job was troubleshooting.
Then COVID hit. That was kind of a mental reset for me where I felt, you know, there was just so much uncertainty at the time and felt like I needed to return to Canada. I missed seeing my grandparents regularly. I would visit a couple of times a year, but because my parents are divorced, it was always a rush when you’re trying to see both families.
So I returned to Ottawa, and my company basically converted me from a full-time employee to a contractor. I was able to continue working for the rest of the year in 2021. At the end of the year, they decided that they didn’t want to set a precedent for foreign people to be working as contractors. So they decided to end my time as a contractor.
After coming back to Canada, how long did it take you to find work?
So departing from my U.S. company happened right around the time of the crypto boom. Obviously, I had a lot of time on my hands then, and money wasn’t really an issue or a motivator then. I had a lot of money saved up, and I had my retirement savings transferred to Canada. So I followed a lot of sports people on Twitter, like sports betting guys. It was that subset of people where I started seeing people post about NBA Top Shot. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but then they started talking about how much they were selling these things for, and I’m like, “Holy s***, that’s a lot of money, I got to check it out.”
So, I joined NBA Top Shot and I remember there were so many users who wanted packs, like they had a queue system where you had to pre-register on a waitlist and then their algorithm would determine if you got selected to buy a pack. I remember the first time I got a pack, I got a LeBron James NBA Top Shot moment and I went to check the price, and I could sell it for $800. I paid $9 for it. From there I pulled in my buddy in, and the two of us just got obsessed, and we started buying ETH, and we started a little Discord channel where we would share all different leads, like any new Top Shot, NFT, or crypto thing that came up on our radar. Eventually, though, that bubble crashed, and I realized I actually needed to find a consistent job again.
My first job re-entering the workforce was with this company called Collier’s Project Leaders. It was on a contract basis. I remember just feeling so grateful at the time to have the opportunity to contribute again. It’s really draining to go through interview processes and just to not receive feedback or strike out, or get ghosted. It’s really hard on the mental side of things when you’re trying to get back into the workforce. It’s one thing applying for work when you have a job, but when you don’t, and you’re kind of desperate, it adds a layer.
What’s the biggest lesson or piece of advice you wish you’d known earlier?
Lean into your network and build relationships, right from college. Especially your professors, if you identify professors you trust, really lean on them as a resource and ask questions. I think what’s helped me over time is having strong emotional intelligence. Understanding what drives people, you know, connecting with people on a level other than work is really important. I know it’s so cliché, but it really is all about who you know and the relationships you build. I got my first interview at my current company because I knew someone who worked there.
I’d also say, don’t just expect things to fall into place. I think you need to be really intentional about your career path and lay out what you see for yourself. Think about what your end goal is, and what you need to do to make it happen.
Connect With Brandon:
- LinkedIn: @BrandonStoneham
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