I had my resume made by a professional resume service, and didn’t look it over as carefully as I should have. She wrote in the sidebar as follows:
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)
Passed levels I, II, and III
I am not yet a charterholder, as I have not yet completed my work experience. I corrected this mistake as soon as I noticed it. I had already sent it out to about 10 firms.
How can I correct this mistake? Am I supposed to report myself to the CFAI?
This sounds like it could be a good Ethics question on the actual exams! 
I suppose it couldn’t hurt to self-report just in case someone were to receive your C.V., see that you are reportedly a Charterholder, then run your name through the online database (or contact CFAI) and find out you were misleading them.
You would also then want to contact each company you sent your C.V. and correct the mistake soon.
Good luck!
This is clearly a violation, and negligence from your side, but you are not guilty until proven so. Don’t give yourself in prematurely. Why not write to these firms about the misunderstanding? Could get you a point for honesty, or at least get your application reviewed.
BTW, your status says L3 candidate. Did you or did you not pass L3??
I did pass L3. Thanks, let me figure out how to update that.
Does anyone have any educated guess as to how likely it is that someone will actually catch this and report it to the CFAI?
I’m also curious to know how serious the sanctions from CFAI would be, not that I am interested in finding out first hand.
Irrespective of those answers here is my advice: draft a letter clearly linking the letter to your application (reference number or full name, both). State explicitly what is said on the resume they have, and explain very clearly that this is an error which you did not catch when the preparer returned it to you. However, you put no blame on the preparer and fully absorb fault for this misinformation. Make an explicit statement of how the resume should read and that you want them to be aware of this so your application process is as fair as possible. Include a new copy of the resume attached to the letter. Be sure to sign the letter. I would send this packet via certified mail to each company’s point of contact (either your interviewer or HR). Call each company, HR and probably interviewer (or email the interviewer). Let them know the issue and let them know the packet is in the mail, and make sure to apologize. Be sure to follow up to ensure each company received and understood the packet.
It’s up to you whether or not to notify the CFA Institute (I don’t know if you’re obligated to). You could wait until you know each company has the packet. This way you could notify the CFA Institute in a similar manner, except you explain the error, how it happened, and how you quickly remedied it and all companies are aware.
Might seem extreme, but I can think of a few cases recently where people got fired for having discordance between resume copies floating around (besides, people don’t ignore certified mail). In this case, you would have record of certified mail and complete documentation in the rare event that anything comes up later.
You need to contact CFA Institute immediately, report your violation, and encourage them to void all of your exam results and bar you from the program.
You’ll never rest until you do.
Seems extreme. If he emails the companies, lets them know, and upon (possible) offer stresses he is not a CFA Charterholder, it should be enough.
#amirite6
You should probably offer a sacrifice to the CFAI gods in order to appease them. A pound of flesh, a hp12c and a hand written document with the standard of ethics 100 times is the norm, if memory serves correctly.
S2000’s wit flew far, far over your head. (He was kidding.)
Decide which body part to sacrifice – like Van Gogh did.
#RustyHacksaw
I love it!
Not as easy as it sounds.
I applied thru some online job portal- they don’t give you an email address the HR, let alone a mailing address. I cannot even amend the application.
The best I can think of is to reapply with a corrected version. If any of these companies does actually reach out to me, I will promptly notify them of my error, and let them decide if they are still interested in me.
Do some research. Find a number for a company and call them. Ask for the number to HR if you have to do that. Then ask for a mailing address or fax number and explain that you need to update your resume.
Throwing up your hands without trying and saying “I can’t do that!” isn’t the way to land a job.
You don’t want someone to wonder why you waited weeks to correct something you knew about. It’s not like you made a typo and your college graduation year was off or something. You effectively delegated work and didn’t check it. As it stands, you’ve overstated your credentials. If you’re okay with the idea that someone might look poorly on that, then wait it out. If it were me, I wouldn’t want them to wonder what I might let slip through the cracks as an employee. I don’t know how badly you want any of these jobs, so that’ll definitely be up to your judgment. If you really want it, why leave anything silly to chance?
I’m not worried at all about losing a job prospect… it’s not like I’m dying for any of these jobs in particular, it was more like, throw it at the wall and see what sticks. I am more concerned with being sanctioned by the CFAI.
Similar to the CBS show “Hunted”, would be cool if CFAI hired highly skilled investigators to combine state-of-the-art tracking methods with traditional tactics to pursue and catch those who improperly use the designation in their resumes/LinkedIn profiles/etc.
First target: Barooky.
#OnTheRun
Or it could be similar to how 4chan tracked people down.
We need to start collecting data to figure out who he is.
Well, then, do you think that the CFAI would want you to inform these companies of the mistake?
Um . . . yup.
Oh my. Has S2000 finally joined the dark (Ohai) side??