Here is my sad story of being cheated and exploited by an unscrupulous employer from Toronto, who also happens to be a CFA charterholder and the managing partner of a investment consulting company in Toronto.
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS:
-I was offered to volunteer for her company as an “investment analyst” for several months, in exchange for good perspectives of being hired after the volunteer period is over. During volunteering period, I work in the office along with several other CFA Program candidates, mostly of them were recent immigrants or on student visas.
-Instead of assignments, somehow related to the investment analysis or CFA Program in general, I was asked to restore a huge pile of neglected accounting documents, This is a job, which is normally assigned to junior accounting clerks. Extremely tedious assignment, with zero relevance to CFA Program.
-By the time when the volunteering period expired, the neglected accoung had not been restored yet. At that point, I was VERBALLY hired with $40/hour rate, and I was asked to complete the “neglected accounting project”. I was uncomfortable that we had a handshake deal only, without any paper trail, but calmed myself down by the fact that the employer was a CFA charterholder, who must comply with “Code of Ethics” and “Standards of Professional Conduct”. Also, I have to mention that in the course of day-to-day work, this lady is friendly, charming, relatively smart and very smooth-talkative.
-AFTER I finally completed the “neglected accounting project”, during which I received from her many verbal and email encouragements for excellent performance, that CFA charterholder told me that I have had two options: (1) Reatroactively decrease (!!) my wage from $40/hr to the mimimum wage and keep the employment, or (2) Take the money and get fired. I choose the latter, because I do not work with dishonest people.
-Nevertheless, I NEVER BEEN PAID WHAT I WAS PROMISED! She paid me the mimumum wage only!
-I complained to Ministry of Labour about that and said that we had a verbal employment contract which provided the $40/hr compensation. She, in her turn, said UNDER OATH, that we never had one! Ministry of Labour decided that, in the absence of a written employment contract or emails where the employer EXPLICITELY admits existence of the employment contract with specified hourly rate, I am only entitled for the minimum wage!
If I won the case, I would publish the decision and released her name. But ,due to lack of the paper trail, I lost the case, and therefore, cannot name that lady.
-Several months later, I googled out her new “investment analysts”.
And I found out, that all other candidates who I started with, left the company. Nobody was hired! All her new “investment analysts” are recent graduates, and from their resumes on LinkedIn it is obvious that they are newcomers to Canada. It looks like this “hiring practice” is used by her year-over-year again.
Please do not repeat my mistakes while getting an employment.
I also encourage you to share your negative experience with unethical CFA charterholders, if you have one, regardless of the city and country.