Career Advice,,how important is MBA / GMAT

Water Cooler Careers
#1

Hello All,

I need some advice, I have Masters in Banking and Finance from Australia, and have some 3+ years experience of working as Financial Analyst (3 yrs in manufacturing business in a developing country, and almost 1 yr in in Dallas working as financial analyst at small healthcare firm). I am level 3 Candidate for CFA and I want to move into some Bank OR Research OR eventually go into M&A OR wealth management OR any more CFA related job. In my current job I work on models for Funds/ Investment Banks etc but not sure if this experience will be accepted by CFA + honestly I dont find it that challenging. I am not sure if without an MBA I would ever be able to make it, would i be ? Also, I saw on few job applications they required GMAT scores, is that something really important ? I was planning to take GMAT eitherway by november but this result has greatly disappointed me as I was hoping that i would pass. I am really not in the mood of leaving work and go to school full time but if that is the only way then definitely i would go for that. But right now I am not financially that strong to afford MBA. I know every one says its all networking that matters but for some reason I have not been able to find enough networking opportunities in last yr. Please advise me on importance of GMAT/MBA in my case.

#2

^ Huh? OK, this post was a train wreck…no offense to anybody that likes trains.

#3

^ ?? you need to elaborate more :stuck_out_tongue: …

IF train wreck as in writing style => “YES”

THEN probably i really need to improve that to pass

IF in my scenario => “YES”

THEN thats why I am asking and you are supposed to post atleast some suggestions

#4

yes

#5

^^^ Thanks all.,I am non native English speaker so definitely I need your help in pointing out exact lines and how it should be otherwise. I have failed Level 3 all due to AM scores since my PM scores were mostly >70, now I can see why. I think I am not good at expressing my thought process probably. how should I improve it ?

#6

I don’t think it’s that important. You need to get above the cutoff. Then you need to show them that you are interesting and unique.

I got into every program I applied to with a score in the high 600s. I haven’t applied to Harvard or Wharton yet, but I still think I have a chance.