Have been reading different posts/arguments on here about how ‘DIFFICULT’ the CFA qualification is, most of them are coming from CFA Charter holders or L3 candidates. I find such attitude to be silly, I also find arguing someone who says that they found CFA to be doable or okay, not THAT difficult in other words, to be even sillier!
I mean, if someone says a qualification is not insanely difficult, you can’t just argue them back and say: You know what, you are mistaken, it is very difficult, but you just didn’t notice it lol (No offence, I am just sarcastic like that) – Or, try to imply that they don’t know what they are talking about because they are L1 candidate and then you start warning them about L2 and L3 in such a ridiculous manner.
All of this is just not true and not right. I work in an audit firm and as you may know, such professional qualifications are very popular in these firms, so I know a lot of people doing different qualifications and I have seen all kinds of attitudes during my years working there. I have also personally known people who passed L1 and L2 on first attempt, I have known another person who passed all three levels on first attempt – and no, they were not geniuses, just normal people like anyone else I know.
So, your arguments of: Call me when you get to L3, or … let’s see when you actually start studying for L2 are just not valid. How do you know that you are not talking to someone who has the capability of clearing the three levels on first attempt? Some people have done it before and I have met some of them, so why do you directly assume that you are talking to someone who won’t be able to do it?
I think in a way, you guys are trying to market the qualification you have and the accomplishment you’ve achieved by exaggerating the difficulty, surely the more difficult the qualification is, the more worthy it is and the more you look better for getting through it, but don’t you think your attitude is just unprofessional and silly? CFA is already known to be such a challenging qualification and it is a respected designation, you don’t need to act as such, if anything, you are hurting the designation with such cynical and unprofessional attitude.
Do not say difficult, because difficult is relative! What’s difficult depends on the person himself and it differs from one to another… plus, CFA is not exactly rocket science! I think it is fine to use the word “challenging” CFA is surely and indeed going to be challenging for everyone taking it. Because:
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Questions are challenging, they are not clear cut – Now that’s challenging!
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You will need to devote a lot of time studying for it and you will probably not have much social life specially if you are a full time worker like me – Now that’s challenging!
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You will need to grasp a lot of concepts, spanning through various topics, study big fat books and memorise tons formulas – Now that’s challenging!
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You will need to sit through a six hour exam and maintain your motivation through it – Now that’s challenging!
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As with all professional exams, the pass rate is low, so you will need to be better than other candidates in order to be amongst those who pass – Now that’s challenging!
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… and so on and so forth… I am sure some of you can come up with some other points.
Clearly what I mentioned above applies on almost every CFA candidate, it doesn’t matter whether you are very intelligent, you are a committed person, you come from finance background, you have a good memory etc… none of us has it all, surely having to accommodate ALL the challenges is going to be tiring and will require a lot of efforts, and that’s challenging, so I can safely say it is challenging without exaggeration, as it is going to be challenging for everyone. If someone says that they didn’t have to study that much for the exam, or that CFA questions are so easy, they are probably not being honest here because it simply isn’t true, you will need to do a lot of studying to cover a lot of materials in different topics, and you will need to do a lot of practice to get through tricky questions …. But the point is, once you’ve done all that stuff, you are going to pass, it is only about putting in the efforts to overcome the challenges, and if you put in these efforts, it isn’t going to be ‘difficult’ to clear the real exam.
So, don’t call it difficult and exaggerate it too, don’t assume that your experience is going to apply on everyone else, if you have failed a couple of times before you pass the exam, don’t assume that it is inevitable and ask them to get back to you after they get their results as if you are sure they are going to fail, because you did!
That’s just illogical, we are not identical people – If you have passed this challenging exam, be positive, share useful tips, talk about your experience honestly without exaggerating and do not look down upon starters, specially that those starters may actually be capable of managing this experience in a better way, they may be capable of accomplishing what you’ve done in fewer years, so quit that arrogance and be realistic!