I’ve seen many people on here say the market is already saturated with CFA Charterholders. In 2011, the US employed about 5.8mm in the financial services industry. Today, there are over 53,000 Charterholders in the US (3% of which are listed as “retired” on the CFAI site). That’s a penetration of about 0.91%.
In 2011 for the securities and investment sector, there were about 803,800 employed. Even if you assumed that all Charterholders were included in that sector (which is unlikely in my opinion), thats a penetration of about 6.6%.
Just from these numbers, I say it is still worth someones time to get the charter in our industry because while I agree that the CFA charter alone will not get you a job, it does set you apart from the rest of the crowd when you do get in a competitive situation.
Not disagreeing with your numbers, but I think this analysis is based on faulty logic. If a person is a secretary for a portfolio manager, then she is employed by the financial services industry, yet will receive absolutely no benefit from the charter (at least not in that role).
I used to work in a CPA firm that employed over 200 people–bookkeepers, CPA’s, non-CPA accountants, etc. None of them were CFA charterholders (nor did they have any desire to be), and they were all employed in the financial services sector.
There are probably 100 insurance agents within a 10-mile radius, and they are all employed in the financial services sector. Most of them probably can’t spell “charter”, and they certainly would get zero benefit from it.
Also, the local retail financial advisor for Edward Jones is also employed in the financial services industry, yet getting the CFA charter is overkill for him. He won’t benefit from it–certainly not relative to the costs associated with it.
Re-run the numbers, but this time exclude all of the “non-benefit” people listed above, and tell me what you get.
I agree with this as well, but breaking it down to the securities and investment sector makes a good case for it. Even if we say half of those 803K wouldn’t benefit due to being a secretary or other (which is a high estimate), we would get to a max penetration of 13.2%. That leaves a lot of upside left assuming the other 86.8% of 401.5K would benefit from getting the charter.
